Picture this in your next romance book...
Thunder, the sex god, with his erotic pink domed scalp leaned over and licked his thin reptile like lips. "Suck me off," he demanded in the whiny nasal tone she adored. The thin short proof of his manhood wobbled as she tried to catch the cunning hotdog with her lips, but as usual the pulsing prestle proved too fast for her.
"Thunder, I'm sorry. You're too much man for me," she admitted ducking her head in shame. Oh why she wanted to please this man, to make him ache for her touch, but she never managed to live up to his godlike expectations.
"Gotta use both hands, sugar-tits, if ya wanna satisfy and keep me."
What woman in her right mind wouldn't want both with this man? Short in stature, but wide in girth Thunder was everything a woman could ask for in her hero. The case of beer that kept is belly jiggly and soft made her drool every time he wiped off his white discolored wife beater t-shirt and kicked off his Hanes stained tighty whities.
"You're just too much man for me, Thunder!"
Thunder preened under her praise and patted the thin combover. "I'm too much stud for anyone to handle, bubble boobs!"
So she leaned in again, ignoring the ache in her knees and slipped her mouth over his manly meat. The unwashed musky scent of him almost made her pass out in pleasure. Why, oh why, couldn't there be more men like this in her world?
So anyone see where I'm going with this? We allow our heroines to be plus sized, not so pretty and something plain until the hero sees that certain something special in her. Yet, the hero is never allowed to be so lucky. He needs to be smart, handsome, carrying a six or eight pack of stomach muscles & able to charm old ladies and cats. Very rarely do we see a hero with a paunch or receding hairline. Granted, I can deal with receding hairlines a whole lot easier than a poochy stomach. Yes, I get my own shortcomings in this area. I write all about hot heros and not stick thin heroines. But being in a size twelve is easy to accept in a woman. It helps pop out our boobs & makes great cushion as he's pushin. Yeah, that was lousy but I've only managed one cup of coffee today. Play nice.
Anyway, that's my thought, brain fart or mind bubble for this week. Why do heros always have to be sexy when heroines don't. Or why don't we hold the men to the same standard as we do our woman. Since I'm just as guilty as the rest of the world with male objectifying someone please play shrink & fix me.
PS: This is no way copies the brillant yet copyrighted Regina Carysle's blog from yesterday. Please ask Desiree Holt or Eve Savage for proof of my original lightbulb moment if necessary. Now go comment & quick trying to pick on innocent little me!
PSS: Leave a comment & you may get lucky. At the end of the day (my day not yours...I'm a night owl) I'll randomly pick one oh so lucky winner to have their pick of anything on my backlist. Yay you!!
25 comments:
That was waaaay to funny, and entirely too accurate. I've often wondered why it was that way.
Looking around me, I see a lot of good looking men, none of them perfect and I can see them for what they are and I LIKE THEM! So why can't I accept them in my books... its simple. Because this is my fantasy life and I don't want a flawed fantasy, no matter how flawed I am myself.
Dream big (and perfect) or go home!
Now see, my hubby isn't perfect and frankly, I'm tired of the perfect man. Yes, do I like the average Chippendale dancer? You bet, but in fiction, it gets redundant.
Great post, as usual Allie!
OK, the first part qualifies for TMI, LOL. However - you've made a fantastic point. I honestly get tired of perfect heroes. We don't have to go to the extreme you have (to make your point) but, a bit more realism is good.
I have to say, Tyler White, a hero I wrote, needed to lose ten pounds, and though he still had great hair, he kept checking for the signs of a bald spot on the back of his head. He was 42 and making his comeback after being a one hit wonder ten years before. The guy may not have been perfect, but he sure as heck grew on the protagonist, D'Anne. I will say that ten pounds does not a paunch make, so I think I slipped around him being a turnoff. However, this is not the kind of book women are looking for.
I think we read to escape reality, and lets face it, most women are never going to have a to-die-for guy in their beds, so why not read about them?
*as I wipe Dr. Pepper from...everywhere* My stomach hurts! I haven't cried like that over a hero in decades!!!
Now to 'fix' you Allie. If romance, the industry in general, had a predominant target of gay women our h/h would be reversed. As it is average women is the target. They want to connect and feel empathy/sympathy for the h, but in realistic thinking, it's those hot, sexy, hard, huge, toned, rippled...etc, H's the reader wants to fall in love with. The reader associates better with the h if she's more in her believable state where that untouchable H could possibly want her too. Remember the I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT BUTTER commercial with the average housewife who becomes a glam-slam when Fabio saunters in?
I rest my case..or diagnoses complete. ;)
LOL! Love the cartoon:) Great post and I've often wondered the same thing but when all is said and done I think as readers we identify with the heroine and we want to be able to attract that "perfect" hero. It's fiction, it's fantasy and it's my feel good fix:)
Oh My F$@#ing God.
Absolutely hilarious. May I promo on FB?
too bad, I am.
just perfect...
thanks
Liz
Well, we must all be on the same wave length.
I posted the very same thought on my blog a couple of weeks ago.
I'd ALMOST changed my hero into a ripped dude to make him more 'marketable', then thought....NO!...he is NOT ripped. Let him be who he is.
And I was so upset that I almost DID yield to the social pressure of ripped bodies that I blogged about my frustration. My frustration at myself AND society's standards for what's appealing.
OMG! This post was way too funny! I don't actually expect my heroes to always have a 6/8 pack and be tall, strong and gorgeous..I'm perfectly okay if a writer wants to write a normal guy next door type hero...and while I'll admit there are the occasional Rubenesque type heroines...realiztically...most of them are tall, thin and gorgeous or short, thin and stacked...so I don't feel too bad about it...lol
ROFLMAO!
In my upcoming book, I have a substance abuse counselor talking about how her Wall Street-type ex-boyfriends didn't make her as happy as her current husband, a country-bumpkin-type. Just goes to show, who we think is our 'ideal man' isn't always the case:)
Bubble boobs! Sugar tits!
ROFLMAO
You crack me up.... the dialog made me think of a prostitute being paid to act like her customer is a stud. And I think that very thought is exactly what you are getting at. We don't expect much of men, so sad but true.
We know that if a man chooses, he can look past a woman's physical flaws and find the beautiful creature she truly is. But I think we are afraid if we look too deep within a man, we'll see your lovely "Thunder" lol...
LMFAO!!! Too, too funny you are, Allie!! Personally, I don't like touching overly buff men. Now looking with thine eyes at such creations are a different matter. There are those, men and women, who are blessed naturally, and then there are those who work their asses off for such a physique. I am neither. I am what I am, love me or leave me.
As for the double standard in hero vs heroine in their physical stature. A woman who isn't skinny is a good thing. It's called voluptuous. And that's sexy!! Frankly, women have it easier in that department. They're called boobs and a va jaja!! That's it. That all. And to think men that men think they're the superior sex?! *just shakes head*!!!
I read a really cute book this week in which the secondary leading man was tiny, with a head too big for his body. The heroine's best friend fell madly in love with him. Love it when someone not-so-perfect wins. But, as Cathy said, we write fantasy. That's why the male fantasy hero James Bond loves and leaves all the beautiful women.
Wow, that's some serious opions, gang! I agree with pretty much everyone of you too. There are different plots for different characters. I will admit here & now you will never see one of my heroines smaller than a size 10. I just can't write it since I'm the fluffy type :)
Liz, go for it :)
Yes, the men around us are flawed and we love them more for it. But in romance novels I honestly think we need the alternate reality where men dig deeper and see the beauty behind the rounded tummy and not toothpick thighs. Maybe it's the idea that romance novels allow us to connect to characters and places we'll never be able to see or experience and building the 'perfect' hero in our minds. Who's to say the hero we're imagining isn't without a scar or two, maybe a crooked tooth or weird looking pinkie toe.
And that's why I love writing romance!! There's no absolute!!
I don't know . . . I've read stories where the heroes are geeky pasty white guys and they are still sexy.
Sexy is in the eye of the beholder.
But let's face it, we want to be carried away by fantasy. We don't want a guy who leaves his dirty laundry on the floor or the toilet seat up, no matter how good he looks.
Seriously the fact that a size 12 is considered plus-sized when the average north american woman is a 14-16 is still fantasy for some.
The thing about the "perfect" hero is he always has to be broken and the heroine fixes him. So I figure, he has to work out because he is so broken. And, they are often described as all hard edges or not quite beautiful but "perfect" in the heroines eyes. So maybe, "perfect" is more in the eye of the beholder than we think. I know I fill in the blanks to make the hero look like what I think is "perfect".
That is great. But I must say that I enjoy reading about women who are not perfect (much like me) who still get the smokin hot guy. Nice fantasy for me, lol.
June M.
manning_j2004 at yahoo dot com
Most excellent post! Yes, you (and me too) often write about curvy girls yet they are clean, well groomed/dressed and remember to use their deodorant! LOL. I DO agree with you that we sometimes make our heroes too perfect. I guess it's because we are writing to women and that's the fantasy. Still...I soooo admired Suzanne Brockman when one of her badass heroes was a man in his 40's who had a receeding hairline. He came off as sexy and manly in every way. I kept thinking BRUCE WILLIS. Okay, that man is hot and definitely not perfect. It's part of his appeal.
Let's try this one more time :) thank you to everyone for your awesome comments and insights. I enjoy hearing everyone's opinions and views. So this weeks winner ny random finger poking is Liz! Liz, sent me your book choice at allie@allie-Standifer.com
Hi, Allie,
I'm a bit late here but I did want to comment on your hilarious post.
You've gone out of your way to make your parody hero disgusting. However, I've written a lot of heroes who were far from perfect physically. Probably my favorite is Rick Martell in Ruby's Rules. He's short, kind of wiry, with overly long, kind of messy hair and a droopy "pirate" mustache. Nevertheless, he's really hot - partly because he's smart and insightful, partly because he loves sex and sexy women.
Personally I find really muscular, ripped men to be grotesque. I don't want Mr. Bald, Beer-guzzling, Macho, weenie-peenie, but give me a realistically attractive hero any time!
Love it. I've written a bald hero and won an award for the book, so I think that one worked. I've written a short hero, one of my early books, and he still gets fan mail. Gray hairs, check. Otherwise, yeah, I'm as bad as anyone else. I do give them flaws, or try, but they're usually good-looking.
Dude, he can have a paunch but he can't be unwashed. Plus it's in the wording.
Reptiley lips - Think "Wicked quirk of his lips as they stretched into a smile."
doughy, jiggly paunch - "He filled her arms, feeling solid and comforting against her."
and then there are the sugar tits and bubble boobs. No hero says stuff like that.
I actually prefer men with a little padding. ;)
I've thought about this for a while. If the romance novel I'm currently co-writing with my pal Liz Reynolds,I'm gonna insist the Prince Charming dude have some major flaws, as almost all men have. Btw I love TTW +2. It is easily the most interesting and well-written blog I've found, and I'm not just saying that to suck up.
I so agree with you...lol
I don't care about a little paunch, but a regular bath or shower is must! Half way decent manners, and no objectifying self while smacking down the female species.
I love mine just the way he is...imperfect as I am...*S*
Thanks for awesome post!
Darcy
pommawolf @hotmail.com
Post a Comment