Monday, December 05, 2005

Romantic Ideals

This has been rattling around in my head for days now. I'm tired of it. It is getting written out and exorcised.
I've been reading a lot of romance novels lately. I like them, I like the escapism but sometimes my brain just goes into overtime and ruins things.
Like the women in these novels: they are usually slender, and often fragile even if the author tries to bring things up to date with the woman having some sort of career or a sharp business mind. Sometimes they are even slightly underweight and described as such.
I think it's because the handsome reckless men (more about that later) can't push them around if they aren't. You know, smoosh their heaving bosom against him, grab their skinny little wrists while he brutally claims them with his full mouth, etc.
I imagine a normal sized girl (or God forbid, one of us chunks) would knee him in the nuts and shove him backwards.
The next thing is that these women are too innocent. There's never one (that I've read about) that had enjoyed several satisfying monogamous relationships (except for the "young widow" type, she got one decent relationship). The man is the teacher, the woman is the inexperienced student. I am not against innocence. I just get tired of the same formula. Besides, why couldn't both be innocent in that case. What would be sweeter than two(fumbling, but they'll get better at it) lovers meant only for each other?
The men are invariably worldly, experienced, tan, reckless, headstrong and need a woman to tame them. She of the underweight body and pale skin of course. It's almost always the pale woman and the tanned man.
...and someone always has to be rich.
I frequently feel sorry for the average gal in the background: the dutiful secretary, usually. She gets to chirp cheerfully in one or two sentences and is gone, too ordinary for this man in need of taming. I'm sure she has nice qualities though. Sometimes this is remedied with a secondary romance story, kind of where the second-class (less godlike) citizens in the book get some action too.
I know, why read them and complain? Because I want to. thhhhbbbbttttt
More seriously speaking, my mind does tend to get bogged down with comparisons and symbolism and what not. I've always been interested in gender roles and if any of them are set in stone. I do think that, in general, men and women communicate differently and have different, complementary, ways of problem solving.
Anyway, if someone were to write a romance about a dark-skinned full-figured woman who's experienced some mature relationships and a pale, somewhat sickly man who hasn't "claimed" anyone with his full lips recently, and not a dime between them, I'd be most appreciative. Here's a starter: she could be the night janitor at the hospital where he's recovering from anemia and possibly, hair transplants.
See. I made it easy.

3 Comments:

At 5:51 AM, Blogger Rachel said...

OMG you are so right about Romance novels!! lol Coming from a BDSM perspective, I've always been fond of the strong Dominant experienced male taming the innocent young maiden, even involving a spanking on occassion. lol

 
At 9:38 AM, Blogger Dreamspinner said...

Definitely some dominance themes there. :)
It also seems like the woman's submission influences the man and puts him under her sway too.

 
At 4:28 AM, Blogger Rachel said...

Nothing wrong with that teehee ;) I personally like getting my own way as much as possible hehehe

 

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