Isolation can be a hell of a drug. During these quasi-quarantined times, creativity in the bedroom is essential. If you’re lucky enough to be isolated with a partner, then you’ve probably experimented in a variety of ways thus far. Hopefully, your birth control has held up and you’ve not impregnated her. But if you’re running out of ideas, and you’ve tried everything kinky you could come up with, you might want to try some romance novel sort of stuff. Have you ever asked your girlfriend what she thinks of fairytale sex? If that’s something she’s into, you might want to still look toward fairy tales that will not creep you out further.
If you’re already a parent at least once, kink or sexual encounters related to princess stories are not appealing at all. Let’s be real here, though. Most of these fairy tales were a lot more sinister and sexual in their original forms. Many of the Grimm fairy tales as originally told were pretty gruesome. In the original tale, Cinderella’s step-sisters chopped off the back of their feet in order for the famed glass slipper to fit. After Cinderella got married to the prince, the birds assembled at the wedding pecked those same step-sisters’ eyes out. In the original Sleeping Beauty, she was definitely raped in her sleep. (Which aligns with a plot line from early in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and although that’s a great comic, I wouldn’t recommend building your sexual fantasies from there either.)
None of those tidbits are terribly sexy, but maybe your fairytale sex could draw some inspiration from the original Rapunzel. In its original form, the prince indeed climbed up the fair maiden’s hair. And he often stayed overnight, as it is subtly indicated that he impregnates her, meaning they were definitely doing the nasty up in her tower. Maybe in her permanent quarantine, Princess Rapunzel is the best inspiration for fairytale sex.
How did all of these horrific tales become Disney classics? (Some of which, admittedly, are still a little horrific when you really think about them. So many villains looking to take princesses as a conquest. Major yikes.) So many of these original stories were filtered through French writer Charles Perrault. At the end of the 17th century, he rewrote so many of these stories to be more acceptable for French noblemen and to instill morals in children. Many of these stories were adapted into ballets later, most famously Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. More than 200 years later, Disney took inspiration from Perrault’s stories more so than their original forms. They also made other tales, like Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, more palatable for elementary school kids. In Anderson’s original, Ariel turns into seafoam rather than make her sisters or beloved prince suffer.
Upon further examination, maybe it’s better to leave the fairy tales to the kids movies. Leave the fanfic to the Twilight fans who are still out there, and pull out a good old-fashioned romance novel. One with Fabio pained on the cover. Find some scenes to reenact and live out some fantasies that way. It might work out a little better than attempting fairytale sex.
And whatever you do, under no circumstances should you attempt a Bluebeard with your partner, Perrault version or not.
