The Consummate Virgin

'This lively and clever book gave me a new concept: “compulsory demisexuality” as the governing law of romance for female sexual behavior.  Making brilliant and original use of virginity loss confessionals and romance novels, McAlister crafts a highly readable interdisciplinary tour-de-force, of equal relevance to cultural studies, history, and literary studies and mandatory insightful reading for the fast-growing field of critical love/popular romance studies.'

— Professor Catherine M. Roach, New College, The University of Alabama, USA, and author of Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture (2016)

‘The Consummate Virgin is that rare thing in academic scholarship – a book that is not only intellectually vigorous, but also hugely accessible and well-written. A talented and empathetic writer, McAlister’s text serves as both an important contribution to the field, and a great introduction to anyone thinking about the construction of virginity for the first time. Written with both passion and compassion, this is a must-read for anyone interested in better understanding how we frame sex and love in our turbulent times.'    

- Dr Lucy Neville, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Leicester, UK, author of Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys (2018)

This book is a study of female virginity loss and its representations in popular Anglophone literatures. It explores dominant cultural narratives around what makes a “good” female virginity loss experience by examining two key forms of popular literature: autobiographical virginity loss stories and popular romance fiction. In particular, this book focuses on how female sexual desire and romantic love have become entangled in the contemporary cultural imagination, leading to the emergence of a dominant paradigm which dictates that for women, sexual desire and love are and should be intrinsically linked together: something which has greatly affected cultural scripts for virginity loss. This book examines the ways in which this paradigm has been negotiated, upheld, subverted, and resisted in depictions of virginity loss in popular literatures, unpacking the romanticisation of the idea of “the right one” and “the right time”.