ABSTRACT
Romance colors the ways in which sexuality is presented in adolescent romance fiction. It promotes sexuality as something magical, mystical, and loving that happens to girls. Sexuality is signified by the occasional hug and kiss. The kiss becomes the dominant form of sexual expression in period 1 novels and remains so throughout the novels of other periods. The subject of teenage intercourse and heroines’ resistance are important developments within the code of sexuality in the sample because they clearly set up a dichotomy between male and female sexuality, defining a heroine’s sexuality in relation to that of her boyfriend. In Practically Seventeen the sometime romance of Tobey Heydon and Brose Gilman is confirmed when Brose gives Tobey his class ring and cements their relationship with a kiss on the hand. Although some interest and knowledge of sex is allowed in later romance fiction, in the end the novels define girls’ sexuality as distinctly nongenital.
