ABSTRACT
In her first romance novel, Tonight and Forever, Brenda Jackson depicts intimate moments between the novel's unmarried African American protagonists, Justin Madaris and Lorren Jacobs, which eroticize safe sex by interconnecting pleasure, responsibility, and respectability. In this chapter, the author wants to return to the theme of respectability, through Jackson's depiction of Justin Madaris and Lorren Jacobs in Tonight and Forever. Jackson depicts black characters whose respectful care and concern for each other are conveyed by holding sensual emotions at bay to make intelligent decisions about safe sex practices. In the racial context, then, Jackson's intention to represent African American men as "professional, but appreciative and respectful of women" can be argued to counter commonly held stereotypes, including stereotypes that have found their way into other forms of black popular culture. When examined racially and historically in terms of HIV/AIDS, the politics of respectability in a novel such as Tonight and Forever take on a new urgency.
