Line #37 Main/MillsAndBoonProse


1	->''"Overcome with his intense passion, Drake manfully thrust hard with his throbbing equipment, again and again, oblivious to the inevitable consequences of his actions and reveling in the sensual pleasure of using his electric toothbrush in a simple to and fro motion rather than brushing in small circles as his dentist had advised, and hoping that Cecelia would appreciate his minty fresh breath over dinner later that evening more than the damage he was doing to his enamel."''
2	-->-- [[Podcast/IrregularPodcast Irregular Podcast! #13]], "The Complete Works of Western Literature"
3
4	The traditional way of handling sex in a RomanceNovel; PurpleProse to IKEAErotica's BeigeProse. Physical actions and sensations are conveyed via vague euphemisms or even overblown metaphors --while emotions are described in excessive, abstract PurpleProse. Often one suspects that the writer wishes ''they'' were participating in the scene. A sure sign that you've got one of these is when [[TheBodyPartsThatMustNotBeNamed abstract nouns are used to refer to genitalia]].
5
6	Popularly associated with, but not limited to, sex scenes. Any interaction between the main characters is fair game for this sort of emotionally charged description.
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8	This is becoming rare in real romances, which are beginning to eschew floweriness for prose that's either [[DarkerAndEdgier more direct, even crass,]] or else down-to-earth, maybe even funny. However, Mills and Boon Prose lives on in parodies, often used to invoke InnocentInnuendo. It also occurs in {{fictional document}}s as a form of StylisticSuck. Can involve AnatomicallyImpossibleSex. If a character uses this trope in first-person narration, that goes under ThinksLikeARomanceNovel.
9	----
10	!!Examples:
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12	[[foldercontrol]]
13
14	[[folder:Advertising]]
15	* Spoofed in a 2008 ad for [=McCain=] oven chips in the UK, where a woman eating the chip is described in this way.
16	[[/folder]]
17
18	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
19	* ''Literature/{{R15}}'': The protagonist is a porn writer. He does this often, [[MostWritersAreWriters in a light novel that does this just as often]].
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21	[[/folder]]
22
23	[[folder:Fan Works]]
24	* ''Fanfic/{{Stray\|Dahne}}'' uses a variation of this. There are no throbbing manhoods or heaving bosoms, but the first sex scene includes at least two separate extended metaphors for the POV character's emotional state.
25	-->"From the towers where they hid in the most heavily fortified territory of Adamska's heart, overlooking the waterfall that fed into its own source, the last loyalists to the old aristocracy said to hell with it, threw down the torches, unbarred the doors, and ran outside to join the party."
26	* ''Spacedust And Chaos: A Requiem''. There's shagging going on in this ''Evangelion'' smut fic but [[PurpleProse it's kind of hard to tell]].
27	* Parodied in this ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostBusters'' story: ''[[http://cartoon.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=19897&chapter=2 Sweet Temptation]]''. [[spoiler:It turns out to be Slimer watching a cooking show.]]
28	* Every single line of ''Fanfic/MyInnerLife'' that is not BeigeProse or CostumePorn.
29	* ''Fanfic/ForbidenFruitTheTempationOfEdwardCullen'': MANCARROT. Which is ''still'' a nicer choice of words than calling Edward's penis a "throbbing lavender man-fruit thing" and Jacob's a "horrible wet mushroom"!
30	* ''Fanfic/ImpenetrableWalls'' being a ''Chinese'' Palace Drama, a man wouldn't do something as vulgar as shoving his penis into his partner's hole. No, he will sheathe his jade stalk into his partner to make her flower bloom and fill her cauldron with his yang energy. Such flowery descriptions actually ''prevent'' Wei Wuxian to understand the Imperial Brother wishes to sleep with him, as everyone just keep couching it in poetic euphemisms he cannot understand.
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
34	* Also parodied in ''[[Film/TheNakedGun The Naked Gun 2½]]'':
35	-->"His strong manly hands probed every crevice of her silken femininity, their undulating bodies writhing in sensual rhythm, as he thrust his purple-headed warrior into her quivering mound of love pudding."
36	* The guidance counsellor from ''Film/TenThingsIHateAboutYou'' tries writing one of these when not busy in her office. Hopefully the only time the word "bratwurst" is used in an erotic novel ever.
37	* The ShowWithinAShow romance novel that Catherine is reading in ''Film/CacaMilis'' is written like this.
38	* In ''Film/LethalWeapon4'', Ebony Clarke's writing is this all the way, but it apparently sells ''very'' well.
39	-->'''Riggs:''' (reading)... "and the peaks of her pleasure rivalled those of the Himalayas"... have I ever made your pleasure rival the peaks of the Himalayas?
40	[[/folder]]
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42	[[folder:Literature]]
43	* Stereotypically associated with [[TropeNamer Mills and Boon]] (UK) and Harlequin (US) novels.
44	* [[http://romance.unclewaltersrants.com/ Uncle Walter's Bad Romance Novel Quotes]] has a selection of some of the best MillsAndBoonProse in print.
45	* ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'': It's not so present in the first book, but the sex scenes become increasingly loaded with grandiose metaphors and descriptors.
46	* Parodied in ''Creator/DaveBarry's Guide to Marriage and/or Sex'':
47	-->"As Sabrina gazed upward at Baron [=LeGume=], whose dark, brooding eyeballs were turgid with passion, she felt the tormented tenseness of his throbbing, pulsating malehood, and she knew, with a knowledge borne of knowing, that she could no longer hold back the surging waves of passion that washed over her, like waves of something, as his brooding throbbing pulsating highly engorged lips sought hers, not that she wanted to hold them back, we're talking about the waves of passion here, although she knew that somehow, somewhere, perhaps deep within the shuddering throes of yearninghood that even now gripped the very core of her womanhood, if you get what we mean, that she must find a way, through the hazy mists of desire, to end this sentence, although she sensed somehow that..."
48	* Used in ''Literature/FlowersForAlgernon'' in the sex scene between Charlie and Alice. It works because it's used to show how different it is when he's with a woman he loves rather than when he's just with a woman who enjoys sex.
49	* Any nominee or winner of the [[http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex.html Bad Sex in Fiction Award]]. An example of an especially amusing TalksLikeASimile passage: "Now her grubby soles met like they were praying. Now his skin was glazed in roast pork sweat. Now she made a noise like a tortured [[Literature/TheMoomins Moomintroll]]."
50	* The one and (thankfully) only sex scene in ''Literature/{{Vurt}}'' by Jeff Noon is described entirely in a metaphor of a garden getting filled with sap. The best that can be said of it is that it's short.
51	* The sex scenes between Claire and Adam in ''Watermelon'' by Creator/MarianKeyes.
52	* ''Literature/FannyHill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'' may be the TropeMaker. Partly justified in this case, in that the author was essentially winning a bet, writing the lewdest book he could without using any dirty words.
53	* Parodied in [[Creator/AnneBishop Anne Bishop's]] ''Tangled Webs'', where Jaenelle is reading a bad romance novel and shows her husband a particularly purple passage. He responds, "Sweetheart, if my penis ever does that, you'll be the first to know. Not as my wife, but as a Healer."
54	* ''Literature/TheFountainhead''. Specifically, the rape scene.
55	* Common in Creator/DanielleSteel's novels.
56	* {{Exaggerated\|Trope}} InUniverse in ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'': Like many aspects of noble society, Ehrenfest's romance novels are laden in implication and euphemism, with ''any'' sort of intimacy resulting in the story [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment suddenly getting so abstract and surreal that Myne can't even tell what's going on]] (she compares the writing style to that of UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} musicals). When Myne tries to write a romance novel of her own, Ferdinand blasts it as "degenerate filth" and bans her from ever publishing it... because she was bold enough to directly describe the characters ''touching'' each other.
57	* Anne-Marie Villefranche's ''D'Amour'' series has this in spades. Imagining a totally incongruous voice narrating it, such as Creator/BrianBlessed's, makes it utterly hilarious.
58	* ''Literature/TheMistsOfAvalon'', so very much. It ends up giving the scenes in question a poetic, soulful tone.
59	[[/folder]]
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61	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
62	* An early episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' has Rachel attempt to write some ("Do you think his 'love stick' can be liberated from its 'denim prison'?"), inspired by Chandler's mother, who writes them professionally. Luckily for the broadcasters, she's a [[RougeAnglesOfSatin terrible speller]] so the others can openly mock her typos; the female character is apparently in possession of "heaving beasts", while the man at one point whips out his "huge throbbing pens".
63	* This is the favoured writing style of [[Series/GarthMarenghisDarkplace Garth Marenghi and Dean Learner]]:
64	-->'''Dean:''' I read modern writers, and [[IKEAErotica it's "screw this", "he licked her", "she sucked that", "he bit the other", you know, "someone put it there", "he held it", you know, it was at this frequency]]. Where is the sensuality?
65	-->'''Garth:''' Yeah, where is "he glided in liquid smooth", where is "her wispy mound"?
66	-->'''Dean:''' Where's "her sacred V"?
67	-->'''Garth:''' "Her honeyed lining"?
68	-->'''Dean:''' "Her mossy cleft"?
69	* Implied in an episode of ''Series/TheNanny'', when Brighton looks up from a book he found lying around and asks: "Dad, what exactly are a person's loins, and how do you make them quiver?"
70	* On an episode of ''Series/{{QI}}'', it is lamented that there are no attractive slang words for a woman's genitals. Until "twinkle cave" is suggested...
71	* In one episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Mrs. Forrester gets sick and asks Crow to read to her from a book called "Love's Sweet Throbbing Gondola". He does, getting more and more uncomfortable with each sentence of the flowery sex scene he recites.
72	* ''Series/ManhattanLoveStory'': Dana has to edit a "light porn" novel that's full of turgid phrases. With the help of the other characters she manages to edit it into something better.
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Magazines]]
76	* ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' suggested a Danielle Steel novelization of ''QVC'':
77	-->A woman's hand (Was it hers?) now came into the screen. Lightly touching the bracelet at first, just the tips of the fingers. Slowly, the hand began a rhythmic stroking up and down the length of the brilliant, finely-crafted piece of jewelry. Giving the viewers an ever-rising desire to call and ensure that they could possess this thing of beauty.
78	[[/folder]]
79
80	[[folder:Music]]
81	* ''That Summer'' by Garth Brooks, especially the chorus, which would not at all be out of place in a romance novel:
82	-->"She had a need to feel the thunder/To chase the lightning from the sky
83	-->To watch a storm with all its wonder/raging in her lover's eyes
84	-->She had to ride the heat of passion/like a comet burning bright
85	-->Rushing headlong in the wind/Out where only dreams have been
86	-->Burning both ends of the night."
87	[[/folder]]
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89
90	[[folder:Video Games]]
91	* {{Franchise/Nasuverse}} sex scenes are commonly a mild form of this (more so in ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'' than the later ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''). Oddly, they're also written in first-person perspective...
92	[[/folder]]
93
94	[[folder:Web Comics]]
95	* In ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'', Jimbo writes his trashy romance novels in a voice that verges on StylisticSuck:
96	--> '''Tai:''' ...I can't stop reading! It's so [[https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=766 florid]] and overwrought, like a Music/MeatLoaf album in printed form.
97	* ''Webcomic/EverydayHeroes'': Dinah Might writes her VillainousCrush on Mr. Mighty into her romance novel in [[https://eheroes.thecomicseries.com/comics/414 a scene]] where she imagines the hero capturing and having his way with her.
98	--> Dinah gasped as Mr. Mighty's hands roughly groped her, then his fingers hooked the neckline of her leotard. Under his super-powered hands, the reinforced fabric tore like tissue paper....
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder:Web Original]]
102	* A fair amount of this, and plenty of other kinds of pornfail, shows up on [[http://community.livejournal.com/weepingcock/ weepingcock]]. An unofficial community motto is "there's a cream for that."
103	** Few things on that site could reach such heights of pretentious hilarity as the one guy [[http://community.livejournal.com/weepingcock/376747.html#cutid1 referencing Ovid while taking advantage of a peach]]. Purple sex at its [[strike:worst]] [[SoBadItsGood best]].
104	* ''Website/CollegeHumor'' reinterprets college course texts as cheap [[http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1721631 bodice rippers]].
105	[[/folder]]
106
107	[[folder:Western Animation]]
108	* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'' showed that this could also be used for TheTalk in the episode "Victor. Echo. November." One might need an unabridged dictionary to even begin to unravel the metaphors.
109	-->'''Dr. Orpheus:''' When young women reach estrus, the lingam craves the stamen-like skills of the Yoni. This is quite natural.
110	[[/folder]]
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Context Main / MillsAndBoonProse