A reader and graduate student named Kate emailed me this question:
“Intrigued by the concept
of well-written, professionally published erotica, I downloaded some of your
recommendations. After sampling several I found a pattern that bothered me
and yanked me out of the story.All of the male characters – and sometimes the
females too – are described physically, right off the bat, as being tall,
handsome, and having perfect sinewy muscular bodies that I’ve certainly never
seen anywhere besides Michaelango’s David. I understand that romance and
erotica are designed to be fantasies, and that the reader is assumed to be a
heterosexual female who is inserting herself in place of the heroine and
fantasizing about this male.I don’t know where they got their information as to
what real women want, because they certainly didn’t talk to me. My current
boyfriend is overweight, and past partners, while running the gamut from skinny to round, have never possessed rock-hard muscles or perfectly chiseled features. *I’ve* never had sex with a guy who looks like that – why would I want to?Perhaps if I found one who was a great match for my personality, I might, and
I’m sure I’d find his body attractive, but I’m insulted that the industry
assumes that this is all I want to read about. I might be able to look past it
and enjoy the plot, but I’m likely to skip past the sex, as I don’t get much out
of picturing a Playgirl model (or two) screwing a blonde, either in terms of
arousal or placing the scene in the progression of the plot. It’s just so far
removed from my actual sex life and what I’ve learned to enjoy.I’ve been dealing with body image issues in women as part of my graduate research, and I’ve often had to help my imperfectly-bodied partners feel secure and wanted – I hate being a consumer of the kind of cultural material that makes so many people feel inadequate.
There’s been discussion on SBTB about romance novels with plus-sized heroines,
so the matter of “imperfect” bodies has been raised before, but I don’t think
it’s been raised in the context of either the hero’s body or erotic romance. Is
there anything out there (either romance or erotica) for those of us who
actively dislike overt physical description of the “ideal body”?I realize that I’m unlikely to find an erotica writer explaining that her hero weighs 300
pounds, but there are alternatives to descriptions of lean muscle – I recall the
hero of Spymaster’s Lady being described as “a big man,” and there’s also the
option of limiting the description and letting the reader fill in the blanks.”
I think Kate asks a very good question – the erotic-romance men are often very, very perfect, in ways that often don’t seem real.
I think erotic romance is very much about reader fantasy, and can be more liberally dolloped with idealized figures, both on the covers and in the books, particularly when it comes (ha) to the men. I think the male standards of beauty are just as damaging as the female standards, and are slowly growing in pervasiveness,
Why do you think the men in erotic romance are so often muscularly and sculpturally perfect? Do you prefer erotic heroes to be written that way? Can you recommend quality erotic romance titles that feature more realistic men, at least, not chisled angular men of perfection?
I think some of this is about balancing the reader expectations and the publishers. Below is a direct quote from an epub I aspire to write for:
“Heroes are always tall, masculinely handsome (never pretty), muscular, and well-endowed. It doesn’t matter who his heroine is…the hero is always yummy.”
I have to say that while my heroine doesn’t have a perfect body, my hero does. All of these comments have me thinking about heroes in the future.
Diana Palmer doesn’t write all of her heroes physically perfect. Some are described as ‘ugly’. She might be someone to read if you are looking for a different kind of man. They are definitely NOT perfect in looks or personality. Some are kinda mean until they come to their senses.
I think sexy is more about what goes on between the ears than between the legs. IMHO intelligence is the most erotic part of a man’s body. None of the heroes that really speak to me in fiction have perfect bodies. Some are short (jockey), some are scrawny (Lord Peter), some are pudgy and furry (what’s his name, the sidekick in the Travis McGee books), some have parts missing (Sid Halley) none is perfect, but they are *all* smart.
Reading this thread I found myself thinking of one of the first fictional chick magnets: Odysseus. The Odyssey specifies that the “much enduring” main character is NOT tall and handsome, and in fact is likely to be beaten in a foot race because he is relatively short and bow legged. On the other hand, he’s an amazing wrestler and swimmer/surfer (his surfing skills come in handy, along with his ability to attract water nymphs) because he has over developed shoulders and upper body strength. He’s also specifically NOT “flowing haired” (unlike his wife’s suitors, and the Phaikaian lords). That, plus being obviously middle-aged, and the man has to fight off actual GODDESSES (not to mention the lovely princess Nausicaa) with a stick. And he does this for the sake of returning to a mortal woman whose beauty can’t compete with the incredible beauties who are offering him eternal youth and life. How romantic is that? (Almost enough to make one overlook the whole pathological liar and cold-blooded killer and thief part of his character.)
I think Owen Kennedy’s quote from an e-publisher’s guidelines, above, is very revealing. What can an author do, when specifically instructed, by the publisher, that the hero must be tall, muscular and well-endowed?
The publisher in question should be directed to this thread, where they will see that imposing that particular rule actually irritates some readers, who want more variety.
Thanks for the recs, AgTigress and Ashley! I have read many of JAK’s books (time for a reread? I think so!) and love them, and I haven’t read Agent of Change but I’ve heard good things about the series, so now I really want to give them a go. 🙂
I have to say that when I am reading romance and erotica I don’t really care what the people look like. I would take either the sinewy muscular man or the plump over weight. I enjoy reading about the characters reactions and interactions. I find when I am reading that I tweak the characters looks anyway to suit my taste. I believe the authors choose to write about the big hulking dudes because it’s generic. It is what will sell best. The people who want the big brawny men aren’t necessarily going to purchase the book with an average looking man. They are going for the “Fabio” type descriptions. Where those of us who could care less will buy whatever sounds interesting.
In the end I care more about the characters personality than I do the physique. The author isn’t saying in every other sentence what a tall and muscular man he is (they give a full description once with a few brief insinuating lines about his eyes or hair or jaw etc later on), instead we are hearing the characters thoughts and feelings and if he or she is moronic I don’t care what they look like that book is dead to me.
I don’t really care what the hero (or heroine) looks like. I’m open to just about anything. I don’t have a physical type myself, possibly because my eyesight is so bad. The most important factor by a long shot for me in real life is intelligence, but I don’t even require that in characters – it’s fantasy. I’m not looking for real life things, things I personally want, and I’m certainly not wishing that this is what my life was actually like. I’m certainly open to more of a range of types for our heroes, but I can’t say I’ve been craving it, either. I don’t read erotica generally, and presumably the idealized heroes are more rampant there, but it’s hard to imagine, because I can’t remember the last time I ran across a heroic ab that was not segmented like an arthropod. I mostly ignore measurements, but I have noticed of late that our standard hero seems to have jumped from 6 feet to 6 and a half. But seriously, I don’t care if we only have physically perfect (whatever that’s currently interpreted to mean) specimens, or if I never read about another one again. Although if we’re changing industry norms, I sure wouldn’t mind if there were more comfortably sized penii out there – the cervix banging as discussed above makes me very sad indeed.
I don’t know about erotica, because I don’t read it. But I just read “Ride the Wind Home” where the hero is described as “portly”. In fact people make fun of him for being fat. The heroine falls in love with him as he is. He does lose weight later on and when they meet again years later she doesn’t recognize him. But even after losing weight he is described as rather short, not much taller than her. And Mary Balogh & Carla Kelly have had plenty of heroes that are scarred or with unhandsome faces. Edith Layton describes the Duke of “The Duke’s Wager” as ‘slight’ and ‘slender’. Also the hero of “To Seduce A Sinner” was described as lanky, with a long mournful face, not handsome. The hero’s face in “To Beguile A Beast”’ is quite mutilated. So I find plenty of physical variety in historical romance heroes.
I like my heroes hot…like, “lickable abs” hot. If that makes me shallow, so be it.
I want my heroes to be yum-yum-yummy.
Having said that, Smart + Funny = Sexy…so the character’s character (haha) also plays a big role in how attractive they are beyond physical gorgeousness.
Years ago, I had a BF that was a competitive body builder. Man, he was nice to look at. **sigh**
If he had sex with her without her concent (she concented to sex with other man, not him, after all), then I hope you know how it called. Hint: not “normal marital sex”.
Well, if you reverse the sexes (and in this modern enlightened age we are mostly agreed that what’s good for the goose applies equally well to the gander) then what that scenario describes is the end of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well.
It may not be ‘normal’ sex, but it is something that’s been done before in literature.
For one—Lyssa? I <3 you madly for mentioning Barrons. :)
Hmmm, I’m at a loss for erotica on this. I have to agree that I usually expect or prefer that in my romance and erotica…probably even more so in erotica. I’ve found the strict erotica (not romance erotica) that does have “real” guys ends up not being very sexy overall, although that is most likely due to the writer/rest of the story and not because the guy doesn’t look hot.
I have read a number of non-erotic romance where the hero is not an Alpha male with perfect abs. Katie MacAlister’s books come to mind. Her vampire and dragon series tend toward a more Alpha/perfect male, but her contemporaries and quite a lot of her other fantasy romances have heroes with a little pudge around the middle or a slight bald spot (“Blow Me Down” is the one I’m specifically thinking of). Plus…she’s hilarious! And she has some funny sex scenes too, which are not that easy to do purposefully. 🙂
I would like the author’s descriptions without pressure from publishers, and I would like for them to leave things vague enough. I don’t want to hear that the hero has Fabio hair, for example, but I would like to know that the heroine smelled or felt, or tasted strands, and that maybe if he was bald that she felt the fuzzy in the best way for her. I’d also like for him to be inconvenient and unsafe.
I love that we are all concerned about good writing. I think that’s a given though because we are on a site that is concerned about it as well. Oh, and I happen to love paranormal crazy ceiling sex under the Thundermountain Railroad at Disney World. I love the inventiveness of Paranormal Romance. There is a balance between respect and irreverence regarding mores, traditions, language. and other boundaries. I like it, and I like it when those boundaries are crossed during sex. I don’t mind awkward pain and pleasure. Just have them all brilliant and funny and resourceful and really great at being intrigued and terrified and worshipful of each other.
My issue is more with the way the hero is portrayed in relation to the heroine. Maybe I haven’t read enough romances, but 99% of the ones I’ve read feature a tall, large, masterful hero and a teeny-tiny, small-breasted heroine who could practically fit in his pocket. I don’t mind large and/or sculpted heroes (though I don’t find the late-20th-21st-century bodybuilder/sportsman ideal as attractive as the more realistic 19th-early-20th-century one) or teeny-tiny small-breasted heroines, but I’m really tired of this particular physical contrast between the hero and heroine being pretty much the only one I ever see, which seems to imply that unless the hero can pick the woman up and fling her over his shoulder and run away effortlessly, or unless she can still look up at him adorably while wearing heels, she’s insufficiently sexy. I actually prefer a lot of erotica to romance because the heroines are more frequently statuesque with big boobs for a change.
I like Georgette Heyer’s The Masqueraders with its two different trope-subverting couples (the large and stocky woman with the large and stocky man, and her dainty little brother with the dainty little woman). I also really like Judith Merkle Riley’s The Oracle Glass, with the small, not-conventionally-attractive, PWD heroine and the smallish-medium, not-conventionally-attractive, dark-and-intriguing, scarred Provencale hero. Not that I think heroes and heroines have to match—I just like variety of body types as well as interesting characters. Scarred heroes are nice, as long as the heroine’s also allowed to have some physical unconventionalities (I don’t think of them as flaws) as well. It’s nice to see heroines taller than heroes sometimes, like Miles Vorkosigan, or Osborne in the televised version of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters, but it seems to be very rare.
Oops, I meant “heroes shorter than heroines” up there. Though she doesn’t write strictly romance novels but novels with romance in them, Robin McKinley has some unconventional-looking heroes. In Deerskin (trigger warning—features rape/incest), the heroine, who is conventionally beautiful, is relieved when she meets the hero’s family that none of them is handsome, because her narcissistic parents prioritized physical beauty in dangerous ways. The hero has a gut from eating cakes but big strong arms from lifting things, and has a plain face. In Sunshine, the heroine is a tall, shy baker with messy hair (I don’t remember whether there was much more description) and the hero is a distinctly physically-unattractive-yet-intriguing vampire with loads of charisma and hard-won moral strength.
@Tania – You and I must be reading different romance novels then, because I keep finding heroines who are over 6 feet tall with either small or big boobs. And I’m SICK OF IT! I’m 5’ 3” with triple D cup boobs. I want short with big boobies, dang it! Just like I want a tall, scrawny hero. I want to read about a woman who’s ashamed to be naked at first because her breasts are so big her nipples point to the floor, but then the hero makes her feel so good that she doesn’t care anymore that she’s not super model perfect.
To me that would be both highly romantic and erotic.
I wish I was a good writer. I’m not. I can come up with halfway decent plots and characters, but I’m lousy at fleshing them out. Like – okay, in Beyond Heaving Bosums Sarah jokes about the next step being inspirational erotica – and I actually thought of a plot around that joke. A woman who doesn’t like sex gets involved with a strange man in her building who’s temporarily subletting. He starts out by giving her foot massages that cause her to get horny. Then before long they’re indugling in kinky sex but with strange twists. Like he’ll have her tied up, teasing her with a (clean) paintbrush, but talking theology and what God actually thinks of sex. What she doesn’t know is that God has taken human flesh to help one of his followers over her personal problems so she can live a fuller life. Eventually she’d meet and marry someone else. But by being healed in her soul she could go on to help others as well.
I could never write it, of course. It would turn out badly. Like if a 12 year old wrote it. (Sorry, actually 12 year olds can write better then me.)
Or there was my idea for a series about aliens who come from a planet where everyone is stunningly beautiful. They’re all over 6 feet tall. All perfectly porotioned. They never have scars or stretch marks or acne – and they are totally BORED with physical beauty. So much so that their race is on the verge of extinction because they don’t want to have sex anymore.
So some of them come to earth and are shocked and delighted by the varity here. Soon you have these guys who are so handsome they could make angels weep chasing after women who are fat or super thin or have scars. The women go for guys who make Danny DeVito look like Fabio. Only thing is – it’s sort of a reverse shallowness on the aliens’ part. They’re so bored by beauty that things others would consider ugly attract them. But it’s all purely visual. Except – with the relationships, they find they actually have to work for it. That fat chick is so used to being put down and made fun of that she won’t even give that delicious looking alien man the time of day. So he actually has to get to know her as a person and that causes him to fall in love with what she’s like rather then her outside.
Again, I could never write it. It would sound worse then the most awful Twilight/Harry Potter cross over Mary Sue fan fiction you can find.
(Wish someone who could write would steal my ideas, however. LOL)
Okay, I’m done ranting. But seriously. I’m tired of heroines over 6 feet tall. Us shorties with big boobies need lovin’ too!
@jamisings
Have you read Lori fosters too much temptation? The heroin is small with very large breast. I recommend.
I understand not wanting to hold up an ideal that many men can’t meet, but my main problem is that I don’t like guys that are really ripped 🙂 I like wide shoulders, narrow waists, tight buns, strong arms…but I like them realistic. The only man I’ve ever known to be really chiseled is my dad, when he was a powerlifter – not even my Marine boyfriend was that pumped up.
I’m in the camp of less description, so I can imagine the man looks like my husband, and the heroine looks like me.
captcha: some17. Nope, didn’t get some at 17 😉
@Kate – love Too Much Temptation – but the heroine has large breasts because, while she is not uber tall, she is a very heavy woman – her weight plays a huge part in her insecurities and personality. I got the feeling Jamisings wanted a book w/a small heroine who had big breasts but not because she’s (or in tandem w/her being) over weight.
Teeeheeeeheee.
I initially read that as:
My men, well-busted 🙂
@Jamisings—have you ever read Judith Merkle Riley’s The Serpent Garden? It’s a historical romance. I could be remembering wrong, but I think the heroine is short and busty (and a brilliant miniature portraitist who also paints religious semi-pornography for monks as a dayjob and uses her own body as a model because as a woman she’s never been able to have life drawing instruction). The hero is a big dude, and not scrawny, but he is absolutely gaga over the heroine.
Also, as someone with an F cup, I hear ya about the floor-pointing thing….I also feel a twinge whenever a heroine in the romance novel disguises herself successfully as a boy due to her body type (like all the spunky heroines of the books I read as a child). I can’t even remember a time in which I would have made a convincing boy….
Another Carla Kelly recommendation would be _Libby’s London Merchant_. The merchant is a tall, rich, disguised nobleman. But there’s a pudgy, tired, provincial doctor with two good reasons for still being a virgin… dang, Kelly is good.
What I love about the _Odyssey_ is that Penelope is the only person in the entire book who makes Odysseus lose his cool, and she does so by outwitting him. Of course, she’s been outwitting rather a lot of men for decades by that time (while keeping a farm productive enough to support them).
About tall, chiseled, ripped heroes… well, I’m often attracted to them. Some of them are good people and good in bed. They are easier to identify than guys whose virtues are less physical, and I bet it’s easier to write attraction to a real-size Ken doll than the particularities of real, quirky, sexual attraction.
That needed saying again, though, and sending to the publishers.
What a fantastic discussion! I have been writing for a long time but only recently started writing erotic fiction, and I am incredibly grateful for the insight into what readers do and don’t want to read about, and why.
I used to think I would put very detailed descriptions of my hero and heroine into my stories, and I wanted to do this in part to give some ‘air time’ to the kinds of people I find attractive, but whom I don’t seem to get to read about in most erotic fiction.
But then I read a romance that changed my mind. It was otherwise a great book, but the author kept going on and on about how much the hero resembled Antonio Banderas. And I was so squicked I couldn’t enjoy it at all. No offense to Banderas – I’m sure he’s a nice guy – but I don’t find him physically attractive at all. So, reading this book made me realize that putting in detailed descriptions of my hero’s thinning hair, baby face, and cuddly physique are going to squick a lot of people too (what can I say, I like big, beefy, balding and baby-faced). So now I am firmly in the camp of those who prefer more minimal descriptions that allow the reader to picture what he or she finds most attractive.
I also vehemently agree with those who suggested not putting numbers to people’s weights or dress sizes, unless absolutely necessary for the plot. I’m a big girl, but I am also perfectly capable of running, dancing, doing aerobics, etc etc. I HATE reading about a girl who is supposedly so massive she can’t move and is about to drop dead of a heart attack… and then finding out she weighs 70 pounds less than I do. 😛
A few people have mentioned the personality traits that underlie the physical beauty, and to me too, this is even more important. I find alpha male personalities even more disappointing than lumpy chiseled bodies. I would like to see more (erotic) romances where the hero is shy and self-conscious. Anybody else feel the same way?
I, for one, am mostly happy with the physical descriptions I see of male characters. No offense, and I’m sure this will offend someone, but I don’t like my men to be overweight. I’ve dated overweight men, some self-confident and others not. However, I’ve also dated men who were physically fit – maybe not ‘chisled’, with muscles as big as a house (that, I do believe, would be rather icky) – and it meant a lot to me that they cared enough about their bodies and their image to not fall by the wayside. Our bodies, biologically, were not made to be fat. Futhermore, most people can avoid becoming fat without too much difficulty – whether we choose to or not is another matter. There are chocolates sitting about a foot away from me – I could eat all of them today and buy another bag tomorrow, or I could eat one today and one tomorrow and one the day after. My well-balanced diet consisting of good, tasty foods (and dessert!) combined with my morning run and my tai chi classes twice I week means I find myself happier, healthier, skinnier, and more self-confident. And I am drawn to the self-confidence that many other happy, healthy men exude for the same reason – that their bodies are happy and so their minds are producing the right hormones and making them happy. In my experience, overweight men tend to have less self confidence, because of society’s perspective. All I have to say on that is that society should stop worrying about other people being fat and perhaps take care of itself first.
Now, I’m not saying I only want to read about body-builder males, because I don’t. But when I read the description of ‘lean and muscular’ my mind automatically pictures what a reasonable man who took care of himself properly with the right diet and the right excersize would look like. I don’t see an eight pack with straining veins and bulging biceps, I see a slightly defined four pack and arms that can handle lifting me up and twirling me around. I’ve dated enough lean and muscular men to know that the perfect six pack is not often achieved, nor desired. And when I think of hard chests and abs, I think of my experiences with reasonably fit men – not a fantasy, but a reality. Being handsome and fit is not a crime – not that you’re necessarily insinuating that at all.
As far as being an alpha male goes, I like that too. I’m a very dominating personality. I’m used to taking charge everywhere I go, and I’m pretty much always right. I’m not boasting. Its a fact. Aside from my clear modesty (not!), I am smart, pretty, passionate, competent, and fiery. I’m talented at most everything I do or try. If there’s going to be a guy in my life, he has to be at least as dominate as me – or else I will walk alllll over him. In my opinion, its not so tiring to read of alpha males as it is to read of wilting, beta females. The girls are the problem – letting themselves be pushed around. Why is it the guys fault that he has too much self-confidence and she just can’t stand up to him? Oftentimes, the alpha males in romance stories have very good reasons to be conceited. They are handsome, clever, develish, intelligent, and talented at something (usually something wicked). They have the right to demand things from those around them – and the wome should find that they have the right to refuse them and make their own demands. Usually, they don’t.
Do I think that there shouldn’t be romance with overweight males? I’m not certain. I think that promoting such an unhealthy image, promoting that being overweight and not doing anything to keep yourself fit, is okay is wrong because its harmful. Being overweight causes heart conditions, clots, diabetes, gout, and many other undesireable health conditions and I think by including overweight men or women in books and media encourages behaviors that lead to detriment in society. I also believe super-skinny, willowy, women should be largely discluded from romance novels as they also promote largely unhealthy behavior and can make larger women feel terrible about themselves – worsening the problem.
In the end, I suppose we each are entitled to our own fantasies. I have met many an attractive, fit man who couldn’t hold my attention for a nanosecond, and many an overweight man who could keep me laughing for days from one comment and a witty smile. Heroes in romance novels should not be based so much on thier bodies as their personalities, and when I’m reading I find I rather discard the physical image provided and instead focus on the wit (or lack thereof) of the characters. That’s what makes or breaks a romance.