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- Feb 12, 2006
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I don't often give into a rant, but this put a burr under my saddle.
Yesterday I got the new RT Book Reviews magazine. Inside was an excerpt from what looked to be an erotica book from a new small publisher. This segment was to lure me into buying the rest for some hot reading material.
Hey, I'm ALL in favor of that! Bring it on!
It was a key scene and supposedly an example of the writer's best stuff.
The scene indicated that the hero saved the girl from a Terrible Fate, so (like it or not) she has to have sex with him.
It's the like it or not part that bothers me. HE made the decision and HE is going to have his way. She has no say-so, no choice.
I suppose it's that alpha-male crap that's so popular. I like a strong man, but he dang well better listen to my side of things or end up walking funny--if he still has legs.
To this romance reader, writer, and editor it read like the lead-in to rape. I have a big problem with that sort of thing. I find anything to do with rape to be a complete turn-off.
Had that scene been written with the lady also being steamy, turned-on, and wanting to commit screaming hot circus nookie with the guy, I'd have thrown my money down just that quick.
BUT--she was reluctant, scared, in doubt, and the decision was out of her hands.
That makes her a victim, not a heroine.
I hate victims and bullies. I love heroines and heroes. There's a big dif between the two concepts.
To me the guy was just another rapist. My personal take is that all rapists should get the needle and remove 'em from the gene pool, but that's just me.
Hopefully I can get on with my own writing. I had to spit out the bad taste put in my head by that short--and, to my editor's eye, ineptly-written--excerpt. (Trust me, had the writer brought THAT to one of my workshops it would have been shredded into compost. Once she stopped bleeding we'd have put her on to a few tips about how to improve it.)
So here's the reader in me howling in the wilderness: I want ROMANCE in my erotica and ROMANCE in my ROMANCES! I want BOTH parties to be wanting each other! This rapist/victim stuff...well...ick. I suppose there's a market for it, but include me out.
I'll give my eyes a good scrub with the ol' eye-bleach, then go back to work. (You can bet good money the ladies in my books are just as hot for the guys as the gents are for them.)
Thanks for the soapbox space.
Yesterday I got the new RT Book Reviews magazine. Inside was an excerpt from what looked to be an erotica book from a new small publisher. This segment was to lure me into buying the rest for some hot reading material.
Hey, I'm ALL in favor of that! Bring it on!
It was a key scene and supposedly an example of the writer's best stuff.
The scene indicated that the hero saved the girl from a Terrible Fate, so (like it or not) she has to have sex with him.
It's the like it or not part that bothers me. HE made the decision and HE is going to have his way. She has no say-so, no choice.
I suppose it's that alpha-male crap that's so popular. I like a strong man, but he dang well better listen to my side of things or end up walking funny--if he still has legs.
To this romance reader, writer, and editor it read like the lead-in to rape. I have a big problem with that sort of thing. I find anything to do with rape to be a complete turn-off.
Had that scene been written with the lady also being steamy, turned-on, and wanting to commit screaming hot circus nookie with the guy, I'd have thrown my money down just that quick.
BUT--she was reluctant, scared, in doubt, and the decision was out of her hands.
That makes her a victim, not a heroine.
I hate victims and bullies. I love heroines and heroes. There's a big dif between the two concepts.
To me the guy was just another rapist. My personal take is that all rapists should get the needle and remove 'em from the gene pool, but that's just me.
Hopefully I can get on with my own writing. I had to spit out the bad taste put in my head by that short--and, to my editor's eye, ineptly-written--excerpt. (Trust me, had the writer brought THAT to one of my workshops it would have been shredded into compost. Once she stopped bleeding we'd have put her on to a few tips about how to improve it.)
So here's the reader in me howling in the wilderness: I want ROMANCE in my erotica and ROMANCE in my ROMANCES! I want BOTH parties to be wanting each other! This rapist/victim stuff...well...ick. I suppose there's a market for it, but include me out.
I'll give my eyes a good scrub with the ol' eye-bleach, then go back to work. (You can bet good money the ladies in my books are just as hot for the guys as the gents are for them.)
Thanks for the soapbox space.
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), where the woman is nervous due to her lack of or bad experience, but indeed she really does want to be with the man, and he guides her down the path to passion hesitantly but willingly. which is a much more satisfying fantasy, really.
We'll see eventually what the returns look like. It's still too early to judge.
