Posted on 02/02/2018 5:19:34 AM PST by C19fan
As a feminist and a romance novelist, if I wrote about a male protagonist who made unwanted sexual advances towards his female employee or ignored pleas to slow down or stop trying to have sex with a date, I would be pilloried by my readers — and rightly so.
Because that’s not the behavior of a romance hero, that’s the behavior of a villain.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The building I'm in has a cafeteria. One morning I was waiting for my order to be completed and two young ladies were talking near me. One was wearing a plunging neckline top. She was complaining that one of her male coworkers was being such a creep because he was looking at her with his eyes focused on her chest. Her coworker agreed he was a creep but then noted that her top indeed was exposing a lot of flesh. The first girl replied she was trying to get the attention of another male coworker.
So coworker A was a creep because he paid attention, but it would be pretty cool if coworker B had paid the attention creepy coworker A had.
Funny!
Simply one more example of what happens when the father is missing from the nuclear family.
Decades ago...jeez, just checked. Almost a century. 1921. Boy, how time flies.
Sad, but very true.
Just make sure you never compliment a woman on her sweater. That is a direct visit to HR.
“How to avoid harassing women”
Don’t make a sexual advance (gesture, comment) to a woman that you wouldn’t make to a man.
Great advice unless the gesticulator is bi.
;-)
Man, the romance novels that were written in the 1970s and 80s usually featured a hero that kidnapped the heroine, tossed her over a horse, took her to his lair, tied her up, and ravished her out of her mind until she was hopelessly hooked on him. It worked because he was fabulously handsome, wealthy, sexy, intelligent, and totally Alpha. And if anyone got in his way, he killed them. I guess that was a different generation of novels. LOL!
Best Regency Romance EVER! Edith Layton’s “The Duke’s Wager.”
What about the double standards. Just forced to watch an Ellen show preview commercial. Guy asked for her to “sign” for a bog box delivery on stage. She says, Only if you take your shirt off, which he complies.
I’m trying to envision the opposite, a conservative comedian talk show host having an attractive girl do the same and him asking her to take her shirt off. Would the laughter be the same?
True, but I don’t think any FR men would admit it if they were confused on this point.
Another useful generalization is, “Would you say this to her (or him) in front of her/his spouse and children?”
“Are romance novels with effeminate men really popular?”
Yes. And in real life too. How many one day old beard growth immature men are out there you see that are supposed to be sexy? The beard’s to make them look masculine. And in many cases, it doesn’t make it anyway.
rwood
The audience for “romance novels” appears to be women who are begging and yearning for someone to harass them.
The most common types of Romance novel heros are; Navy SEAL/Special Ops/Spy, Billionaire, Vampire/Werewolf and Pirate. Not exactly the types you meet around the water cooler.
This lady spends zero time writing about how Sally was swept off her feet by John, the Odor Eaters Junior Midwest brand manager.
Precisely. That is essentially what I told my ex-wife when she was "unhappy" and began being restless years ago before our divorce. She seemed to have an insatiable desire for men that would compliment her and build up her ego. One day I told her, "XXXXX, men will tell you anything they think you want to hear to get in your pants." By then, there was nothing that could have been done to save the marriage.
She lives today with tremendous guilt and regret. It is just not that hard to look into a crystal ball and foresee what the future will hold. Sad. We had a beautiful family. But it lies in ashes today.
The most common types of Romance novel heros are; Navy SEAL/Special Ops/Spy, Billionaire, Vampire/Werewolf and Pirate. Not exactly the types you meet around the water cooler.]
A nice summary. I began reading romance novels years ago, after a stay in the hospital and finding Elizabeth Lowell’s Riding the Diamond Tiger. She is a great writer, and I’ve read most of her stuff.
Reading other romance novels we find the same heroines, the strong women who eventually dominate the male hero in one way or another. But put out redhot, passionate sex when the guy is under compete control.
However, despite the woman having control of the male, much like a teen age girl has when she rides a gelded horse, there are always conflicts of various shades of bathos and misunderstanding.
Men and women fail to communicate, at least at first. The great leavening is hot, dripping wet sex, which is fun to read but is total fantasy. Women love fantasy, men love sex. Both hero and heroine have their misunderstandings, and they live happily ever after the teen aged gelding rider has her way with the insensitive hero who’s day job is to kill his and his military or law enforcement enemies. And it helps, of course, if a lot of money is in the plot.
I used to read romance and reflect on how happy I am to be a man, which most romance writers see as something that needs gelding and riding.
Don’t read much romance anymore. And I don’t miss it.
I love that one!
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