I started this post on 25 October, and put it aside because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. In mid-October, I put Heavy D’s “Now That We’ve Found Love” on my running mix and was thinking about the song and how much I liked it (and Heavy D) while I was out one day. Heavy D died unexpectedly on 8 November at age 44, and the news headline made me remember this post and that I’d never finished it. While I’m still not sure that I made every point I wanted to make (my train of thought while out running moves long the lines of Huh. Heavy D. Romance heroes. Why not heavy D heroes? …. Squirrel! Treebranch… manhole cover. Hi doggy! …. Romance heroes. Huh? ) I am still thinking about this topic, and wanted to ask your opinion.
While listening to Heavy D tell me about how he’s found love, I got to wondering whether we’ll ever see heroes who don’t fit a physical ideal – a super hard muscular one. There are built heroes and slender heroes, but even the slender heroes, once they take their shirts off, are described in such a way that almost always mentions muscles. I’ve read runner heroes and swimmer heroes and the absolutely physically astonishing Navy SEAL heroes, whose muscles have muscles of their own. The image of romance heroes is pretty darn sculpted much of the time.
Many hero descriptions include specific mentions of broad chests, narrow hips, defined arms or abs, or all of the above. In some romances, it seems like the heroine was undressing the Incredible Hulk, what with some of the descriptions that made the hero seem larger than life.
For fun, I searched Google:Books for romance author names, like “Catherine Coulter” or “Kathleen Woodiwiss” alongside the word “muscles” and looked at the sample text that appeared.
“His muscles were well honed to a vibrant hardness.” – A Season Beyond a Kiss, Kathleen Woodiwiss, 2001.
“The full length of her thigh was pressed to the granite-hard muscles of his.” – The Flame and the Flower, Kathleen Woodiwiss, 1972.
“The shirt lay open to the middle of his muscular chest, revealing sun-bronzed skin…” – The Elusive Flame, Kathleen Woodiwiss, 1999.
“He was well made, looked to be as strong as Prince, her grandfather’s most vicious wolfhound, his muscles stark and hard.” The Penwyth Curse, Catherine Coulter, 2003.
And it’s not just the romance authors whose careers have spanned decades who I searched for. I was curious about some of the more recent popular authors, too, in my highly and completely un-scientific searching.
“His chest was pure muscle, the kind that came from fighting thoroughbred horses for mastery, day after day. Even in the waning light, she could see that his shoulders were enormous, his arms rippled with muscles as he loosely held the reins. He was turned to the side, slightly away from her, so she could see how the muscles marched down his broad back.” The Lady Most Likely, Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, Connie Brockway, 2010.
“He undid the buttons on his shirt and peeled it off, revealing a tight white T-shirt that showed off his firm chest muscles.” Something About You, Julie James, 2010.
“His chest was tanned, sculpted muscle, sprinkled with golden hairs. Not big, bulging muscles, but the muscles of someone who did physical work every day, hefting tanks around and lowering boats into the water…” – Crazy for Love, Victoria Dahl, 2010.
And of course:
“His abdomen was ribbed as if he were smuggling paint rollers under his skin. His legs were thick and corded.” Dark Lover, JR Ward, 2005.
I could keep going, but you get the point. The heroes, they are muscular. And not just Down There.
I don’t meant to call out these authors as if they’ve done something wrong in their descriptions – they haven’t. Not at all. One of the odd things is that the cover model might not match the hero’s appearance – his hair or eye color, for example – but the muscles will probably match up in strength and definition.
The funny thing about that super, possibly superhuman, physique: it takes a lot to maintain it. Yet these super-muscular heroes aren’t going to the gym in every chapter, despite the fact that keeping those hardened and sculpted leg muscles and all those washboard/paint roller/eight pairs of parked Volkswagen Beetle abs requires regular maintenance. All that gym time would cut into the wooing time. And the business time, too. (Question: Was there a Regency GNC, selling protein powders and weight gain shakes for all these heroes back then?)
Anyway, these authors are successfully writing the heroes we read about, and continue to read about, ostensibly giving us, the readers, what we want: really finely sculpted specimens of manly manhood with extra muscles of manfulness on the side (and back, and legs, etc).
There seems to be a very wide chasm between the depictions of heroes in romances, and men like Heavy D, and other men of size. Or just men of different sizes. I mean, come on, Heavy D found love, right? He sang about it (over and over and over. Seriously that song has, like, 14 repeats of the chorus). Heavy D was a stumbling, bumbling overweight lover (though I have NO idea why he’s dancing in a raincoat in that video).
And most men don’t match that described muscled ideal. Men gain weight in different places than women – often in the stomach area (though for some reason as they age, many men lose their asses. Where the hell do they go, anyway?). Most of the fathers and husbands I know are not super muscly. They aren’t physical ideals as defined by the romance genre, but they are, some of them, pretty hot. And their wives and partners and girlfriends love them.
If part of the underlying message of romance is that the hero and heroine aren’t idealized images of perfection, and are instead two people with human flaws who are perfect for each other, why are the heroes continually ripped and cut into muscled ideals? I know the muscular descriptions are ways to reinforce the virility of the hero, but are there other models of heroic proportion we could embrace as readers?
We’re seeing more heroines of different sizes, slowly but surely. Would we accept a hero who isn’t muscled and physically ideal?
I would like to think so. Have a look at this Tumblr blog of romance authors posting pictures of their real-life husbands and partners: Romance Authors Present: The Sexiest Men Alive. Some of them are truly adorable and gorgeous and funny (I love the expression on Daisy Harris’ husband’s face). But these are real men with real bodies, many without the stark hard muscles of rippling, granite-hard hardness.
So do we want to cross that chasm between the romance depiction and the shaped varieties of they actual human male body? What descriptions would we as readers welcome, and conversely, what would repel us?
I would like to read more heroes with less than perfect bodies, or a little body-image anxiety. It’s not that soft bellies turn me on, but I’d like to see a hero go through the “Am I attractive – Why, yes I am” journey. (And not in a Lord of Scoundrels “You don’t find my broad shoulders and chiseled buttocks monstrous? Egad!” kind of way.) I’d like wider recognition that “sexy” is a complicated, multidimensional thing: washboard abs are nice, but they aren’t required.
Mac from Nora Roberts’s “Heaven and Earth” is portrayed as more geeky than a muscley alpha hero. A bit of a beta to his heroine’s alpha.
In Jilly Cooper’s “Rivals” there is an adorable, clever character called Freddie who is unashamadly quite fat and gets his woman in the end.
I don’t have too many problems with overly muscular heros – it’s expected really, but I do sometimes quirk an eyebrow at the romance hero who has been half starved for ages and yet is still described as a hawt tower of rippling musculature.
Zsadist from the BDB series practically starves himself until he gets together with Bella, but he’s still described as being muscular and hot. Given how it’s made a big point of describing how much weight and muscle he put on after he gets his act together I was picturing Christian Bale ala “The Machinist” in his pre Bella days.
I just read Dancing in the Moonlight from the previous thread (Free! Reasonably good read!) and one of the things that yanked me right out was a workaholic doctor with no hobbies—and a perfect body. Like, could lift a grown woman without visible effort perfect. There is only one way for that to happen, and I suppose being a doctor would improve access. I would have bought that he was strong enough to lift her, because, sure, testosterone does help muscle growth and a strong-but-ordinary man can lift me—but not without effort.
The icing on the cake was that the heroine was an Afghanistan vet who’d been doing her PT, so, legitimately working out several hours a day—but SHE was “soft” with “curves” and weak enough to have trouble changing a flat tire. (That might have been the prosthetic leg, but still.) I liked the rest of the story just fine, but I have a lot of trouble finding such blatant sexism sexy.
“Taking care of his appearance” that’s been mentioned up there is important, but doesn’t involve tons of time at the gym unless the heroine is into that. Sure, I work out (it’s fun!), but I’m pretty unsystematic about it and would never demand more of a partner than I’m willing to put in myself. I care about the clothes. A fat man in clothes that fit is a hundred times sexier than a built slob.
When it comes to Real Men ™ vs. Romance Heroes I definitely swing both ways. If we’re talking, say, romantic suspence with lots of action then there’s plenty of room for Mr. Ripped Guy with that improbable six-pack. (The discipline required to maintain that six-pack at mid-30+ is pretty demanding, btw)
Nevertheless, I think that anything that increases the diversity of romance novels is good. There are plenty of Real Women in romance novels. Yet we need more of everything: More single dads (Secret Dad plot WOOT!, more m/m, f/f, more less-sex, more non-vanilla… more Real Men.
Shout out at this point to Emma Holly for including Hairy Men and other Real Man Bodies in her books. We get to read about them naked too.
All in all: I am all for authors having the courage to take the road less travelled when it comes to all things romance.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like big muscles!
I’ve also noticed the seeming requirement that all heroes be at least six feet tall. I’ve always enjoyed men closer to my own height (5’ 6). Much easier to kiss while standing up. The hero in my forthcoming romantic suspense novel, Whispers in the Dark, is only 5’8”. Of course the heroine is only 5’2”, so he’s still taller, but not overwhelmingly so. And he’s muscular, but like a runner (which he is), not like a bodybuilder. (Hey, it’s my book, he can fit my ideal!)
I was somewhat disappointed in the Nerd book I read (though it was enjoyable) because the hero wasn’t a real nerd—he was just disguised as one. I know lots of adorable nerds and was looking forward to seeing one celebrated. I do like a man who is in decent shape, because it shows he’s active and has some discipline when it comes to eating and drinking. But bulging action hero types—no thanks.
Maybe these over-the-top bulging descriptions are a holdover from the days when Fabio was on so many romance novel covers, so you had to describe your hero as looking like Fabio, so they could use him on the cover?
Sometimes, when it comes to physical description, less is more. An over-reliance on conventions of beauty can easily slide into cliché. Doesn’t matter if it’s flaming tresses or abs like a steam radiator, first it becomes boring, then it becomes a joke on SBTB. I personally like it best when the hero or heroine focus on one or two things that make their beloved unique in their eyes. I am currently reading a mystery series by Ruth Downie set in the time of the Roman empire. The main character, Ruso, describes his heroine as having eyes whose color he can’t describe, only that it’s the color of the sea. Of him, the heroine only says, “He’s a good man,” and the author tells you very little more. He’s dark, he’s not too young, and he’s a soldier functioning slightly below peak condition. With minimal physical description, she creates an utterly delightful relationship and one of my current favorite heroes.
Aside from stylistic considerations, I tend to be turned off by descriptions of hard muscle. Hard as a rock sounds… hard as a rock. Who wants to cuddle up with granite? Do I favor chunky or chubby? Not especially. Firm is nice. Mostly though, seeing the hero through the heroine’s eyes, maybe described with a couple of Homeric epithets, works for me. In Kim Harrison’s Hollows series, Trent is not particularly attractive to me (almost colorless hair that moves on its own? Yum? I don’t think so.), yet because of Rachel’s response to him, I’ve always been convinced that he is the designated hero.
As in other aspects of fiction, I ask the author to put me in a fresh landscape (manscape?), trigger my imagination, and I’ll do the rest.
I would recommend Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooter series. It’s not straight romance, there’s a lot of action as well. Most, but not all of the heroes of this series are former Navy SEALs, but they vary greatly in height, physicality and many aren’t traditionally attractive. I’m pretty sure one of them is carrying a bit of extra weight (I want to say Dave Malkoff, but my memory is fuzzy) and Mark Jenkins is definitely on the short side (less than 5’6). Dan Gillman falls in love with a taller, physically less-than-perfect woman. There’s a lot of variety for some very physically capable heroes.
Personally, I don’t like overly muscular guys and I don’t reject anyone simply based on looks, but I will admit to being a little more shallow in my reading. A physical description of a hero that included “as he took off his shirt, the sweat glistened on his pasty-white fat rolls” probably would make me want to put the book down and find some brain bleach.
Captcha: days16 – how long it’s going to take me to get that mental image out of my head.
Would they PLEASE give up the hairless, oiled, overly developed heroes on romance covers! I like a little bit of hair & a lot less definition on the bodies of romance heroes. And can they wear some shirts please. They’re too smooth and obviously spend all their spare time working out—not reading or thinking. The sight of slightly sweaty forearms of a guy who’s been building something turns me on more that the current covers. And, how about a heroine with Marilyn Monroe’s body—nowadays she’d be called FAT. Soft skin, smooth curves, a little cushy and she still makes men drool. Why I imagine she even is a size 14 instead of size 0 that’s required now. Horrors, she’d be sent home in shame to lose about 50 lbs.
I would be SO happy if romance covers showed guys who looked more like the husbands in that wonderful romance-author-husband tumblr! I’m the mother of a son, and even though I prefer reading paper books rather than ebooks, I’ve actually started feeling really uncomfortable buying the paper versions because they are SO objectifying about “perfect” male bodies.
I don’t want my son to ever look at my collection of (wonderful) romance and think he has to look like the guys on the covers – rippling muscles, etc – in order to be hot to women. And I know that as a teenage girl I sure would have felt weird if my dad had kept his bookshelves filled with books that all showed stereotypically hot, half-undressed women on the covers…
I find carrot-shaped super muscly men far less attractive than those with lightly muscled, slightly softened body types. I have to block out the physical descriptions in most romance novels (and the covers! Ack!) or I get put off.
I seem to be in the minority in also liking the idea of more romance heroes who aren’t taller than the heroine: I personally prefer tall men, but am a bit sick of the ubiquity of the HUGE man and TINY woman, him holding her delicate itty bitty waist in his giant hands etc.
I don’t pay that much attention to the physical description of the hero in a novel – unless the description is so florid that I roll my eyes. When I’m reading a romance, I build a picture in my mind of what he looks like, and part of the fantasy, part of the escape, is that he is hunky and wonderful and perfect. So yeah, doesn’t bother me.
(Now back to your value-added comments.)
@Pam G says:
Yes. Exactly. Oh and alsoplustoo, love the Medicus series, whole bunches.
What I see happening a lot in romance these days is an over reliance on physical descriptions of perfection and an under reliance on using character and interaction in order to build sex appeal and romantic tension. Is Russ in Julia Spencer Fleming’s series described to a T? No, not really. We know he pinches his nose when he thinks. We know he’s quite a bit older and yeah, she thinks he’s well built. But there aren’t pages of description. Yet he’s still sexy as hell. I think too many authors have gotten way to clinical.
And mark me as one who is very skeptical about all these rippling abs, especially in historicals. When we see photos of renown “muscle men” in the early 20th century, they look flabby to us; hardly an ab in sight. Not only does it take a HUGE amount of a specific type of workout to get and maintain that kind of physique, it also requires a body fat of less than 10%, because you need extremely low body fat to draw the skin to the muscle. So you have to be working out obsessively, and also be very obsessive about diet and intake.
I go to the gym 5 days a week. I see lots of guys working out and working hard, but most, especially those over 30, have at least a bit of belly. One of the fittest guys I know (marathoner, works out at least 2 hours a day every day, varies up his routine constantly) doesn’t have any belly fat at all and *still* doesn’t have abs because he doesn’t get all overkill on weight training.
Since I see it as mostly unrealistic, all those “rock hard ripply abs” descriptions tend to throw me out of a story. If you want me to think a guy is really sexy, don’t tell me every last detail of his LOOKS. Tell me what he does, how he acts, how he treats her. That’s sexy.
Let’s face it: I like muscles. A lot. I had a conversation with our cousin Matt awhile back, though, that made me think.
Matt is a former Marine. He’s probably 5’10” or so, slender, with a great smile and glasses. Even more, he loves our cousin Paula and her daughter like whoa, and takes good care of them. He is patient and kind with his mother-in-law, who is probably one of the more annoying people I’ve ever met.
Matt: I’m not sure I like those romance novels.
Me: Why not?
Matt: I’m not one of those guys. You know – a romance hero.
Me: Oh, yes, you are. Let me tell you why.
It has nothing to do with what he looks like. It’s all about who he is. It would be a great thing if there were a few more real-life romance heroes like him, too.
It’s funny that this topic is being brought up today, since I’ve been thinking about it myself this past week. My husband, Boyfriend as he’s affectionately known, and I are in our mid-twenties and we are real people. Even though Boyfriend hits the gym 3 times a week with personal training and could bench press me, he still isn’t as ripped as romance heroes are described. Am I disappointed? Of course not! Love and lasting relationships are never based on purely physical attributes.
One of the quotes also brought to mind the other half of my thoughts on physical descriptions of romance heroes, they’re always “sun-bronzed”. Boyfriend doesn’t sun-bronze. He freckles. . . after he has healed from an excruciating burn. I can’t think of a romance hero that doesn’t tan. We can forgive heroes in historical romances for not knowing about the dangers of wrinkles and skin cancer, but even contemporary heroes are tan. Oh well. My hero is pale, freckly, and a little soft and I couldn’t love him more than I already do.
So true!
I guess I come from the shallow end of the gene pool, cause I love the Hottie McHottersons that populate Romancelandia! As can be seen from this comments thread, everyone has something slightly different that floats or sinks their boat (count me in as being grossed out by hairless bodies!).
I think that one of the wonderful things about romance is that it taps into those passionate out-of-control feelings that characterize Young Love. Even when the heroines and heros are mature, they stare still portrayed as experiencing passionate love on that scale. Generally speaking, younger people are shallower people when it comes to what attracts them, so for many of us those memories of the super-lustful feelings of our youth are all caught up in the physicality of it all. The super-fit muscular hero description is an easy button for the author to push in order to trigger those emotions in the reader. It certainly works for me, even though I would not in reality prioritize muscles if I were seeking a new man.
On a final note, my husband works out on his boxing bag for 15 minutes before breakfast and 15 minutes before dinner every day. This is enough FOR HIM to maintain a heavily muscled physique as he is otherwise an utterly sedentary middleaged xbox-jockey. Being muscular doesn’t really take a huge time investment IF you are genetically pre-disposed to lay down muscle as he is. If you are genetically predisposed to lay down fat (as I am!) then it takes a massive effort just to stop youself getting fatter. So, I have no trouble believing these heros who have heavily muscled bodies with minimal effort – it’s 90% genetics and 10% effort. Sometimes I hate the unfairness of it, but you can’t trump genetics.
Call me a hypocrite, because I want my romance heroes to be described in all their manly muscleness (like the Diana Ross song, I want muscles) and the heroines to be less perfectly sculpted.When I was dating, I was attracted more to men who fell in the Heavy D spectrum—big, sturdy, tall.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (every time this topic comes up and I have the time to chime in), I’m not interested in reading about heroes who aren’t sexy. What constitutes sexy is certainly subjective (both physically and emotionally). I would encourage authors to play within the range they find sexy. So, if you truly think short fat bald men are sexy (and I’m not talking about one you’re already in love with, he doesn’t count—since this is FICTION), then by all means, write about them. Just don’t expect me to buy your book (and I buy a LOT), no matter how many awards and pats on the back you get for writing it. While I may get sick of kick-ass heroines, I never get sick of hot heroes.
On a related note, I’m one of those readers who doesn’t need precise descriptions of either the hero or the heroine. I actually prefer to let my imagination do it.
This is part of why I love Eloisa James’ ‘Your Wicked Ways’ so much (even though I’m not overly enamoured of the chilly heroine). The hero is permanently rumpled and shambling with messy hair and a hairy, burly chest, and he’s running happily to seed because he’s a composer, not a Regency buck spending all his time boxing, fencing and riding manically across countryside (all of which are activities likely to keep Regency heroes in fairly good shape, mind you.) I don’t think he’s overly tall, either. And in the first sex scene in the book, he says ‘I’ll make this as fast as I possibly can’, consolingly to his heroine-wife. It’s a nice disruption of the usual romance tropes.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I don’t find romance novel heroes sexy. I can’t stand overly muscled men. I enjoy good plots and writing, but honestly, if these men showed me interest IRL I’d treat them like a brother but would never sleep with them.
Sexy to me is a guy, who, like I’ve said before, is built more like Barry Manilow. Tall, more on the scrawny side, and – I’ll admit it – I like big noses and I cannot lie.
And yeah, just like I’m tired of tall women in romance novels – not to mention skinny women (I’ve read a few romance novels with fat women and with the exception of Bet Me, not many of the fat heroines are short, and I’m sorry but if you’re over 6 feet tall and a size 16, you’re not fat! I’m 5’ 3” and a size 22, I’m fat! I want some real fatties when it comes to my heroines just for once!) – I’m tired of these muscle men in novels too. Variety is the spice of life.
So bring on realistic heroines AND heroes!
I remember earlier there was discussion about interracial pairings, that some people, (me,) are for it, but there’s belief that if authors go against the norm so to speak they might fail. Perhaps it’s the same reason why authors stick to muscled heroes? I don’t find overly muscled guys attractive either. They scare me actually. I like guys that are either skinny or somewhat muscled. I also want to see more darker haired and dark eyed heroines, or heroines that are Jewish and not in name only.
Word: believe75. I believe that perhaps soon I might find love, but I hope not after I’m 75.
This description brought to Jasper Renshaw from To Seduce a Sinner by Elizabeth Hoyt. I think that’s one of the things I adore about her books. Several of her heroes are of average height and average looks. Renshaw from the above book is described as having a very long face and puppy dog eyes. I always imagined him having a horsey face.
Simon from The Serpent Prince is described as very lean and elegant. I imagined him as a David Bowie type.
Harry Pye (ha!) from The Leopard Prince is not only a commoner hero for our lady heroine, but also medium height. He’s fit, but not bulging with muscles. I do adore her heroes.
I read romance novels for escape. I know the heroes are unrealistic (as are the heroines), but that’s OK. I do realize it’s not real life.
All those ripped English noblemen? Regency gentlemen might ride, fence, or box, but most considered excessive physical exertion to be déclassé. Big muscles meant you were a common laborer—they weren’t something a gentleman aspired to.* Just as women wanted pale complexions to reflect their status in the privileged classes. And this was even more true to later periods, like the Victorian era. The portraits of these folks bears out that they weren’t all prime specimens of our current standards of physical attractiveness.
So, I’m OK with the narrow, overly glamorous hero mold. That said, who doesn’t find Sense & Sensibility’s Colonel Brandon more appealing than that milquetoast Edward Ferrars? There are always the exceptions!
*Of course, those medieval heroes had to be strong enough to wield those ginormous swords!
No one here has mentioned Lois McMaster Bujold!
Miles Vorkosigan is short, his head is too big for his body, and he’s badly scarred and manic – and absolutely enthralling. 🙂
Caz (in “The Curse of Chalion”) is described in less than flattering terms, too – as a middle-aged sort of guy. So is Dag (from “The Sharing Knife”). He’s in better shape, but not typically attractive, and he’s got that hook for a hand.
The male lead, Dreadnaught Stanton, in M.K. Hobson’s series (starting with The Native Star) has a very skinny, undernourished body and isn’t a hottie. Granted, he has a supernatural condition that causes this-though he is quite heroic. I remember wondering how it would all turn out when I first started reading it. It turned out to be very romantic, but he stood out from all the muscl clad alphas in most books.
@Leigh P: DREADNOUGHT STANTON! I totally liked him—in no small part because his description totally let me envision him as played by David Tennant in my head, and this is never, EVER a bad thing. ;D
I very, very much need to read the second book in that series now.
Oh, and to clarify the above, Conan types aren’t my ideal IRL or in reading, but I’m not automatically put off by the descriptions of muscles in fantasyland. My personal type is the more debonair, sophisticate who may or may not be tall and have muscles—Cyn Malloren, Peter Wimsey, or even Fred Astaire. I like grace, intellect, and humor. And IRL, the voice is killer—James Earl Jones, John Hurt, Alan Rickman? Swoon.
Bennett in Connie Willis’ awesome Bellwether is a geeky hero (although she focuses more on his lack of fashion sense than on his physique). And she has another awesome hero who’s absolutely perfect for this topic, but I can’t say who it is because it’s kind of spoilery. So everyone should basically go read the short story collection Miracle right now. I don’t think you’ll mind reading the other ones to get to the one I’m talking about. 🙂
Susan
Ah – Alan Rickman, sexy voice, long sexy fingers – and another man with a deliciously sexy big nose.
Yep, if I was Roxanne I’d go for Cyrano over Christian any day. Thank you, Steve Martin, for correcting that story.
Alan Rickman. Nuff said.
Same for Miles V. I love Bujold’s books because he is so imperfect.
I tend to find a brain far more sexy than a body. Hopefully, the brain stays as they get older. The looks? Not so much.
As for men losing their asses as they get old? We did a study (informal of course) and decided it’s because they scratch them so much, and what they don’t scratch off, moves the the front in the belly. (And we did use my husband as the specimen)
It’s also the reason the suspender industry is still thriving.
I’ll chime in FOR muscles! I do like them and I like them on my novel covers. In real life, my ex was lean but worked out and my current is a true mesomorph and has the best thigh muscles even though he doesn’t work out much (my favorite scene from the original Conan the Barbarian was when they first showed Arnold by showing his grown-up thighs—still makes me melt). I also very much dislike overly hairy and neither my ex nor my current have a lot of chest hair, though they have enough). But on the cover I’m totally a fan of hairless and muscular and uncovered. I’m visually shallow apparently.
But like some other posters, if the description doesn’t suit me, I just forget it and imagine my ideal instead (see above). So we can all be happy here and that’s what’s so great about romance novels.
My favorite Regency hero is Freddy in Georgette Heyer’s “Cotillion” precisely because he’s not the rake, gambler, or whatever superhero types Regency heroes are – he’s a man with an average intellect who manages brilliantly. I can’t remember offhand his body build but I seem to remember he’s of slight build and medium height with mild features.
Like a lot of posters, I tend to ignore the descriptions – I’m not sure that I even make up my own visuals, I just don’t care that much about what the characters look like – I care about how they treat each other and the chemistry and emotional connection.
On Jennifer Crusie’s blog a while ago there was a discussion of the hero in Manhunting and his mustache and how some readers just mentally edit it out. And I was like, huh, he has a mustache? I’ve read Manhunting many times, and I really don’t remember even noticing that to edit it out (and I kind of like mustaches).
@Kit – I was totally thinking of that Connie Willis short story too.
I’m not sure about this, but I wonder if some of the dichotomy between normal bodied women and unrealistically hunky men in romance comes from the assumption that readers identify with the heroine and want to imagine themselves in her place.
Men with perfect gym bodies are usually very self-centered – it takes a lot of time to maintain that kind of physique.
I like a man to take care of himself, keep somewhat in shape, good grooming etc. but spend more time with me instead of in the gym.
When Sophie Dempsey meets Phineas Tucker in Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation she describes him as looking “like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.” Other than the fact that I understand from that description that he’s good looking, I haven’t a clue about hair or eye color or exactly how tall or muscular he is. Yet I think this is one of the Bestest Ever descriptions of a romance hero because, despite the lack of specifics, I know exactly how Phin looks.
I wish more authors did this, with both heroes and heroines. Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve read about the heroine’s “small but perfect breasts”. I’m a heterosexual woman, and unless a plot point revolves around the heroine’s bra size, small, medium, or large doesn’t matter to me—all I need to know is that to the hero her breasts are perfect.
I like muscles, but if a guy is so overdeveloped that his veins look ropey, that is not sexy to me. What makes me swoon? The back on the male model on the cover of Carolyn Jewel’s Indiscreet. How a man moves—Sean Bean in the Sharpe series or a young Frank Langella (never thought he was handsome but he could have been the role model for all those romance heroes who move “like panthers”). Intelligence. Thick (but not long) hair. Humor. And Percy Rodriguez’ voice.
@cleo – But again, I don’t find men with muscles attractive. So that sort of theory doesn’t apply to me, or to all women in general. I, personally, find them ugly. Maybe it’s because when I was younger guys built like that were either very mean to me because I’m fat, or because the few who were nice were usually also gay. (And many were both mean and gay.)
Or maybe it’s because I’m just not wired that way.
I don’t know. I just know I imagine myself with a man who’s tall and scrawny more often than a man who looks like Mr. Universe.
Oh, and one more edit, working in the library I’ve met many men, granted, older men who can no longer handle the stairs down into adult fiction, who check out and read romance novels. I bet they’d enjoy seeing some men who are not society’s standard of hunky the same way a lot of us women would like to see heroines who aren’t society’s standard of sexy.
There’s a scene in Dog Handling by Claire Naylor (more chicklit than romance) where the heroine goes to bed with a rebound guy and thinks something to the effect of “Liz could totally see the point of chubby boys.” And yes! Exactly! The hero in that ended up being far more perfect, but I absolutely see the point of chubby boys. Medium tall, stocky, bearded—yesplease, and they almost never show up in traditional romances.
@Anna the Piper – you said Newfoundland musician and i went dizzy for a moment. (I think I remember you from the GBS msg board in the late 90sish!)
@quizzabella – I loved the storyline with Freddie and Lizzie in Rivals, because they were both so unhappy with their perfect partners.
@trefoil: I am absolutely the same Anna the Piper who’s been frequently spotted on the OKP, though I didn’t show up there until 2000! Still though—yeah, there’s my epitome of swoon right there. Bouzouki players from Atlantic Canada FTW!
To date, I am the ONLY novelist I know of who’s written a novel with a bouzouki player in it. I’m tellin’ ya, anybody else writes one, I am so very, very there. <3 <3
While this is less on the topic of imperfect heroes and more about Heavy D, I have to say that I’ve been listening to a lot of his music since his untimely passing. When I put his catalog together (including the Reggae album he did in 2009) there was one ongoing theme. He wrote love songs throughout his career and that’s a rarity for a rapper. Kudos to Heavy D, “the overweight lover MC.”