When it’s your life’s work to keep people away from sex, you’ve chosen a path of humiliation and frustration. You’re selling a thing no one wants, and your only possible customers already had virginity explained to them by God. But despite it making her look like a sad dummy, author Jennie Bishop has dedicated herself to purity. She wants you to know your poundable holes are God’s precious gifts, and in 1999, she turned that sentiment into a children’s book.
The Princess and the Kiss is a story about one thing– a princess saving her first kiss for her royal wedding. There’s no age suggestion, but I feel like saving a first kiss for her wedding overshoots even the most optimistic expectations of your Christian daughter’s chastity, so the book must be for people old enough to understand it’s an allegory for penetration. But it might not be! This might literally be a book about the spiritual trauma of unmarried kisses.
Jennie dedicated The Princess and the Kiss to her home-schooled daughters, Vashti and Christianna. She does not mention how their innocence inspired her writing or her life, but instead calls for them to spend their first kisses well! Let them die dryly against the lips of a nerd for God’s glory! This is so goddamn weird. This is how a witch would curse a chapstick thief. It’s what every priest tells you the second you’re alone. It’s the least romantic line from a video cassette called Church Camp Hunks.
The story starts with the birth of the princess. When she was born, the king and queen gave her a very special gift from God, her first kiss, and something already seems off. Does this mean they put their mouth on her, or very carefully didn’t put their mouth on her? I get we’re talking about making sure your daughter never has sex, and I think every father sees the appeal in that, but why put it like this? Tell your stupid kid a wizard filled every penis with hot mustard, and cockroaches can’t resist hot mustard. You’re already inventing a kingdom of precious magic to indoctrinate her, you coward. There’s no ethical difference in explaining how insects are waiting to devour her crotch.
A page after giving the princess the very special gift of her first kiss, the king and queen give the princess the very special gift of her first kiss. Which means I’ve either gone insane, or this is not a well-written book. They lead the princess to a secret room where her kiss is stored, and if you thought her kiss was going to be a magical energy trapped inside a bird cage, congratulations:
This is an oversized children’s book, so the above illustration spans 26 inches across with no text. Representing your first kiss as a pet ghost your parents keep in a safe is beyond childlike. If you asked me, “What if fucking was like a lamp?” I would catch your words in a jar and label it “THE DUMBEST THING ANY STUPID FUCK HAS EVER SAID.” But even as a fan of trapping abstract concepts in glass, I can’t believe Jennie Bishop thought this dogshit stupid idea was powerful enough to warrent a full splash page. Did she imagine the reader would be so blown away by this reveal they needed to bask in it? Take the whole concept in? Even if it wasn’t spoiled by the cover, a two-year-old would stop you and say, “Let me guess: it’s, like, a glass cloche holding a light? Psh.”
And since we’re here looking at it, let’s talk about how this image unravels Jennie’s entire world. This is an open room on top of a thirty foot tower. This “secret kiss storage” is visible from at least five different windows. Any pervert could climb in there and take it. Her virginity has been curiously probed by a dozen squirrels every day for the past 18 years. By the rules of her own fiction, this princess has made love to at least six hundred birds. It should be called Princess Pigeon Fucker, Yes You Read That Right.
So now, despite this being, just, so deadass simple, the princess has the gift of her first kiss spelled out for her again. It’s the only thing that has happened on any page of this book, and this one is no exception. Remember, this was written by a woman who home schools her children. At this rate, we’ll be having virginity explained for another 80 pages and it will be 2049 before her elderly daughters graduate Beginner Shapes for Latter-day Saints.
If you filled a pillowcase with cottage cheese and took out television ads to tell everyone they weren’t allowed to have sex with it, your story would have richer characters than The Princess and the Kiss. This passive dingbat lives to get fucked, some day, but only once and in very specific conditions. She is a bottle of champagne for a special occasion, but with less autonomy and a noisier pop. Wait, go back one. Sorry. This book has me really cranky.
Now the book pivots to the princess refusing her kiss to suitors. Princes come from around the kingdom to offer themselves to her. The first is Prince Peacock, who is a great jumper, but you know, knows it. That’s a deal breaker for Princess… holy shit… I guess she was never given a name. Anyway, as a nameless woman whose goals, personality, and education are all described as “not kissing,” she knew she couldn’t give herself to a prince conceited enough to bring salesmanship to a princess courting.
Her next courter is Prince Romance who seemed interesting, but maybe too interesting? The princess, her insecurity honed from a lifetime of being told her first vaginal entry was the only thing she had to offer, knew this was too much man for her. “This sex machine is going to know I can’t fuck the second he gets it in,” she thought. And she was right. They should have really explained the princess’ deal to Prince Romance before he drove all this way.
For a writer, this next suitor is pretty embarrassing. His name is Prince Treasurechest, and he’s rich. But the princess, who again, was never named despite being written by a world class character namer, knows this guy is also too much for her. With all his money, why would he care about her sort of clean mouth? No, she needs a man who’s perfect. Not desirable, successful, adventurous, or experienced… someone who aspires to meet a woman who keeps her vagina under a dome and no second thing.
Many more suitors came, but the courtship ended with the princess choosing no one. “Why won’t God bring me a husband?” she demanded after every manner of man came directly to her home to offer her everything they had. Her mother comforts her by telling her even if God forsakes her, at least she’ll die with that first kiss, glowing lustily in a nearby tower. “Oh, that’s a good point,” the ape-brained virgin idiot thought.
But what’s this? A common man approaches the castle? Surely this lowborn scoundrel would not insult the princess’ honor by… no. He wouldn’t dare.
With all the charm of an Instagram follower asking for a farty pair of your panties, the common man tells the princess he has no money or talents, but he has been watching her. This is exactly the type of creep she and her parents are keeping her virginity locked away from, but they love him. He has them in the palm of his incel hand when he finally reveals the only very special gift he can give her. You already know what it is, but here are 26 inches of silent illustration anyway:
“My lady, I offer you this old leather pouch of not knowing how to fuck,” he says to her without words. “Crrrr-eaaaa-aaaa-kk,” reply the atrophied muscles of her widening cervix. They are the perfect couple– two bumbling dummies who have built their lives around leveling up their celibacies for one brief Pokémon battle.
Like someone did on every other page of this book, the common man explains virginity to the princess and her parents. It’s the perfect sales pitch for these weirdos, and they agree he is the one for whom the princess has been waiting. But is he? Should this woman with unlimited options and presumably some responsibilities make a lifetime commitment to the first virgin stalker to get past her security? Like, are you teaching a valuable lesson to young girls when you tell them a man’s greatest gift is an unmoistened penis? This shit is bonkers. If I was this author’s husband I might ask myself why a woman created an entire fantasy world in order to say, “The best ladies choose unremarkable men with no sexual experience.”
So in a victory for “nice guys” everywhere, the common man and the princess get married and exchange kisses (not pictured). A drawing of a husband and wife kissing would look like an amateur gang bang video in this context, so Jennie does her best to describe it with the majesty it deserves– sun streams through the windows while all the kingdom and the actual God sing. So everyone watched them learn how to kiss together, which, Jesus fuck, means the very special gift was really only a kiss the whole time? It wasn’t an allegory! They still have at least three secret magical orbs to reveal to one another before they’ve consummated this thing.
“Princess Unnamed-Common, on our anniversary I have one last very special gift to give you. It is my will-o’-the-wisp of never having a thumb up my butt.”
