We want to fall in love with Mr. Right, be swept away and boned to jelly. Then he swears fidelity and commitment forever.
But you want hot, dirty, sex with hot, dirty bad boys too, don’t you? Tell the truth.
How about a sexy, dangerous, bad boy tamed only when he falls under the sexual thrall of the right woman? The woman would be you. You don’t know why he wants you above all other women, but you know that fine, roughneck, wild tiger turns into a purring tomcat under your pussycat paws when you lay it on him. Roowwrrr.
Do you have mainly monogamous fantasies? My problem is that my vivid imagination doesn’t stop with the purring. Like the Energizer bunny, I keep on going. A relationship is never a perfect thing. But an encounter . . . an encounter can be darned near perfect.
See, your run-of-the-mill testosterone-laden alpha bad boy isn’t a good bet in the long run. They don’t fit in well at jobs. We know the best bad boys are vampires or daddy left them a fortune, but that’s such BS, and BS doesn’t work in my fantasies. Real bad boys don’t have real jobs and I can’t deal with a man without a J-O-B. My fantasies don’t include bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan.
Bad boys like to hang out with other bad boys. The testosterone they ooze attracts chicks like bees to honey. Those heifers shake their derrieres and bounce their boobies in front of your bad boy. It’s the rare bad boy who can resist dipping it. They’re addicted. You say it’s your fantasy and your bad boy is only addicted to you? Right. Even you don’t believe that BS.
Bad boys love to see women catfight over them. They’ll piss you off just to peep their gals screeching, hair-pullin’, and jiggly bits falling out over their manly bad boyness. They’ll tip back their Colt 45 beer, guzzle it down and grin. They decide whoever wins is who’ll get dipped tonight.
Bad boys are more trouble than they’re worth. I can’t get around it. Bad boys are good for encounters, never relationships.
How about rich, dominant Harlequin Presents type heroes who will go to any lengths to possess you? He throws you on the bed and pounds you into a glob of quivering flesh, begging for mercy. He glowers at any man who speaks to you, including the waiter, his smouldering eyes shooting jealous sparks and catching tablecloths in five star restaurants on fire.
Those suckers scare me and they should scare you too. I always wonder why those silly heroines don’t realize that Him Big He Man is going to beat their rear-ends the next time they fling their locks and act feisty? It gets old after a while, Mary Sue. Yeah, it’s gonna get old to him too and you’re gonna be picking your butt up off the floor. Want an ice pack for that black eye? Keep the abuse hotline number handy. Harlequin Presents hero? Encounter material, with mace strapped to thigh.
I don’t see what women see in the tortured hero. Brotha don’t need me. He needs therapy, okay? If I want to take care of a tortured soul, there are plenty of foster children who need a home. Chicks who dig tortured heroes? Try your local mental health center first. I don’t mean to look for a man there either. I’m talking about your issues, hon.
The most prevalent hero is the perfect man. He has a good job, he’s fine and he can tear up the sheets in the sack. He adores the heroine. Perfect men are great marriage material. But you know how long-time married sex can get without attention–the ol’ roll over and plug it in routine. Over the long haul, Mr. Perfect Hero Man equals married sex, which can be fun with some work, but surely there’s dirtier grist for your fantasy mill.
My favorite heroes are funny, smart, quirky, beta men. These men are marriage-material too. They tend to get kinky and that holds promise. But they never up and turn into Julian McMahon, George Clooney and their two identical twin brothers either.
Do you ever get sick of reading monogamous romance sex? Or worse, writing it? There’s only so many ways to describe inserting tab A into slot B. An author has to spice it up sometimes or it can get mundane. I think that’s the appeal of erotic romance. Fantasies spice up the sex and authors are bringing more of their fantasies into their novels.
The seventies and eighties style romance riffed off fantasies by having the heroine raped every few pages by a different hottie, or best, an entire platoon of hotties. After reading certain authors, shoot, the notion of a forced gangbang seemed pretty multiple orgasm inducing. Rape is no longer a politically correct fantasy device of choice. This makes sense, because I’m sure studies would show that few forced and violent gangbang rapes have led to multiple orgasms of the victim.
This leads to a big dilemma, because one’s romance heroine shouldn’t be a slut. The commandment is 1) Thine romance heroine shalt be sympathetic and likable above all other women.
But in the best fantasies, we’re sluts. We have fantasies about other men. Multiple other men. Strangers. The UPS guy. The UPS guy, the cable guy, mailman and Brad Pitt at once. You say you’re not a slut and your fantasies are only about your significant other? Then nope, you aren’t a slut. But you are boring.
Here’s an example of a female fantasy: Everybody should try a little of everything at least once, right? Is there a certain type of guy you haven’t tried? If you want to try a woman, that’s fine too, I’m open-minded.
You get to take applications. You’re very selective. You choose the best applicants to interview. Your interview process is private, quite rigorous, detailed and thorough. Sometimes your applicant needs to come back for repeated interviews. Occasionally, you conduct a group interview.
Your applicant pool is large. You never actually hire anyone. It’s much too hard to choose the right candidate. And if you actually hired someone, you’d have to stop taking applications and that makes no sense at all.
You dirty slut.
Oh. In a romance, you’re supposed to fall in love, get committed (as in a relationship, not as in insanity), and if heterosexual, there’s the possibility that boatloads of babies will be produced.
I guess you might become enamoured of a particular applicant. But he thinks you’re a ho-bag. You most certainly are. And you love it.
Ah, the conflict.
I do have a point to this and here it is. How would you incorporate your wildest, dirtiest slutfest fantasies in a romance novel and still manage to redeem your heroine from filthy slutdom? Don’t hold back now.
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I always thought those mistresses and courteseans were way more interesting than the heroines of most historicals.
But your heroine is a slut strictly in the past and offstage? That would probably be okay.
You’re interesting me in the stories though. I’d love to read some different historical heroines. I’ve tried some and other than some minor window dressing here and there, the heroine’s all seem interchangeable to me. One could say this about many contemps too, though.
I’ve noted your recommends, thanks!
I think Nora had a slutty character in one of her trilogies a while back. I remember her name was Margo and her story was my favorite of the three stories. She even had an affair with a married man! Horrors!
I don’t really have a problem with women who are sexually active prior to meeting the guy. I don’t think I’d be interested in a story where she’s still sleeping around afterwards. I think a healthy sex life is a good thing. I prefer ’sweet’ romances. Don’t care much for romantica primarily for that very reason. No problem with sex, and plenty of it, but want it monogamous after she meets the guy.
I think we will be able to accept the promiscuous heroine as long as she is wearing Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choo when her ankle go up ’round her ears. *grin*
I am all for the empowered woman heroine who can be a strong, single girl who has sex with good looking men. We live vicariously through our main characters (writing them AND reading them) and it can be escapeism on the fantasy level when we read the fabulous female goes man huntin’ and scores. We wouldn’t do that in real life, but our imagination is whetted when we can read about a girl doin’ just that.
I am all for a heroine who has her faults, can fall into bed with a guy before she should, and is not sobbingly broken over it. I’m not partcularily fond of reading about rape, or prostitution… but erotic romance? Yeah baby! Bring it on with a glass of Zin and some bon-bons. Its girls night in *wink*
I offer up A Total Waste of Makeup by Kim Gruenenfelder as an example of what I think you are working towards. That was a fun rollicking read with a herione who felt somewhat real, despite her unrealistic job and friends.
How about a heroine who lives her life and does what she pleases before deciding, at the end of the book, which of the men in her life is Mr. Right. If heroes can be rakes, I see no reason why heroines can’t be rakettes.
Great topic, Monica! I knew you’d bring it.
For me the difference between a likable character and an unlikable slut is agency. For example, I hate Meredith Grey. She’s so whiny and needy and mopey I just wanna reach into the TV and bitchslap the sandy little cunt.
I don’t care how many partners a character has, as long as she doesn’t whine about it or make excuses. And, as long as she isn’t boring.
A woman who thinks and acts like her sexual choices are beyond her control is an unlikable slut. A woman who knows what she wants and goes after it isn’t a slut at all, she’s a role model.
Isn’t everyone always complaining that the Anita Blake books are boring because all she does is have sex all the time?
Boring is boring, whether it’s one man or many. The story is key.