If only it weren't just another silly romance...

[shadowkat]

[As an aside, I'm being kept awake by needless fretting. I know it's silly but am doing it anyhow. Anyone else out there prone to fretting and worrying? Won't say what here, because means I'll have to lock the post, and would prefer to keep public for now. It's job related, let's leave it at that, shall we?]




To entertain myself this week I've meandered around live journal a little. Read a post about slash on writercon that was less than complimentary on the form and got kicked (he deserved it) - if you want to see how he got kicked and why - read here: http://sigelphoenix.livejournal.com/46527.html?nc=19&style=mine - this journal writer sums up the reasons succinctly and does a good counter-point. I remember reading it and thinking, oh you are so dead you dimwitted fool. And an erotic fanfic - it's a threesome written by herself_nyc - the only erotic fanfic author I ever really read any more, mainly because I can rely on her not to commit any of my personal pet peeves (such as the dreaded descriptive adjective in place of the personal pronoun and the overuse of adverbs), she's amazing at description, and she tends to hit most of my kinks.

[Also, I admit, I am curious to see how she handles a threesome since neither of us buy that such a thing can work. (Particularly amongst Buffy, Spike and Angel - who are all either very competitive, insecure when it comes to relationships, somewhat obsessive, extremely high maintenance, uncommunicative, burdened by guilt, and hate to share. To have a threesome - you really have to be more secure about yourself and your body/spirit than these three are at this point in time. But whatever.)]

That said, like with all romantic fanfic writers - I get annoyed with her fic and usually, not always, drift away, roll my eyes, give up, or skim. The only ones I did not do this with were Whatever She Deserves and Loving Kindness, which did not easily fall into what I like to call conventional "romance genre" tropes.

This is not the fault of herself or any of the other writers, methinks, so much as the genre itself. I find stories where the whole point is for the guy/gal to boink shamelessly then ride off into the sunset to have babies somewhat annoying. This, in a nutshell, is why I gave up on the romance genre. Plots that can only end in two ways - bore me. Ie: Boy and girl end up together and have babies or boy and girl don't end up together. Usually its the former, or it would not be a "ROMANCE", with a few permutations - ie, they don't have babies, girl is superwoman and can have highly sucessful career, babies and hot man, or she surrenders to guy and has babies. Boring. Also impossible for me to identify with, which may explain the boredom? My idea of fantasy is girl saves guy, has great sex, but also career. Or better yet, girl and guy save each other, have a relationship but the focus is on their journey, career, what-not. They may end up together, they may not - but that is not a main ingredient to the plot so much as something that explores their characters and furthers them on their journeys. My two attempts at fanfic - sort of demonstrate my desire for that type of plot.

I read a lot of romance novels in my youth. My grandmother, mother, and aunt had huge collections - which I devoured. Haven't read any since 1995, with the possible exception of a Jennifer Crusie (one book - Bet Me), and a book by someone online that was a Regency. Oh the other exception may be herself_nyc What Love Means to You People but I'm not sure that qualifies since it's a gay male romance - which by its very nature is bound to be different. (Not that different, it turns out - still ends in one of the three permutations mentioned above. So maybe it does count as a romance? And how it ended was actually my main issue with it. Not, I hasten to point out to anyone whose read it, the epilogue, but rather the five chapters prior to the epilogue.)

Romantic movies have the same problem. There's only a few I can think of that have not ended in this manner and I'm not sure you can count them as romances - "Devil Wears Prada" and "Little Black Book". Was going to add Working Girl, but it sort of does and sort of doesn't. She gets Harrison Ford, but she also gets the corner office and he's making her breakfast in the morning and there aren't any babies in sight.

The ones I read? Ah, the kinky ones were by Rosemary Rodgers and contemporay - often involved violent sex. The best of the bunch was a mystery, not just a romance, called The Wildest Heart. Then there was the terrific Kathleen Woodlwiss bodice rippers - The Wolf and the Dove , can't remember the other one.
My favorite? One I've never been able to find and whose author I've forgotten, Bride of the McHugh. At least it was when I was 14. Now, probably not. Read a lot of Phyllis A Whitney, who wrote gothic mystery romances. And Mary Stewart - whose Touch Not the Cat had a mystery, and a telepathic heroine/telepathic hero. Helen McInnis did something similar to Mary Stewart and Dauphne Du Maurier - gothic mystery thriller romances. Also liked the adventure ones - the was two - one where the woman was a pirate, and another one where she was a highwayman. Straight ones? I grew bored of. Let's face it there's only so many ways you can read about two people having sex before things just start sounding a tad redundant or ridiculous. Plus it's not the "sex" itself that is the turn on, so much as the banter and foreplay leading up to it - the tension, the will they or won't they suspense. Since you know it's a romance, you figure they will at some point, but you wonder how? Can they overcome the obstacles in their path? Is it possible? And it's always more interesting if the two characters are at odds.

Nah, I'm definitely not "the target market" for the romance novelist. I'm too allergic to sap and sentimentality for it to work. Which may explain why I got more satisfaction out of how BTVS, Firefly, and ATS ended than many people did. I liked the fact that the writers sort of made fun of or twisted the romances, cut them short, gave them a negative twist. Loved, loved the fact that Buffy did not end up with a guy and took off to lead her life on her own with her friends. Adored the guys fighting the good fight in the alley. That worked for me far better than the imagined romantic re-tellings.

That said, I do like slash and the occassional erotic fanfic - I just like them when they aren't too fluffy and don't end happy or don't have a neat, wrapped up in a bow coventional ending. This may explain why I like slash - male on male - it doesn't tend to end like the other fic does. Neatly. It also provides me with a view of what it would be like to make love to a man as a man. To have that physical power. Which is something I'm not sure you can understand unless you are a woman who fears being hurt physically by a man. Or acknowledges the possibility. When I was in college we were given "whistles" to protect us from being attacked on campus and went to "date-rape" seminars. Roughly half of my female friends have been raped or molested. Heck, I've been in at least three situations that I almost had that happen. So yeah, there is something appealing about the idea of being the penetrator instead of the penetratee - but doing it to a guy, not a girl. It's not raping, so much as feeling equal, as if you both have "equal" power. One is not stronger than the other. One does not dominate the other. While watching the Stephen King series the last few weeks, I was struck by the fact that in each scenario the male had the power. He controlled the female's reality. In two episodes featuring couples traveling - he pulled his wife into another dimension against her will, he would not listen to her. He was in control. And this may also explain why I struggle with most fanfic, not just herself's but everyone else's and romance novels in general - the tendency to put the man in control of the woman.

Historical Romances are notorious for it - and to give herself_nyc credit, she does a marvelous critique of it in her stories Mr Grieves and The Fallen Woman and Mrs. Grieves and the Abandoned Husband - where strong Buffy goes back in time to have human William's child, only to be treated like a whore or his possession. A thing not a a woman. Something to be protected, cherished, fucked, enjoyed. And it is in keeping with the historical romance genre - most of the romances I read, Harlequin's, Regencies, Bodice Rippers - all had to do with a "woman" being tamed - a la Shakespear's Taming of the Shrew - his version of the historical romance. In fact if we look at Shakespeare - it is not until the lady pretends to be a gent that she has power, is treated like more than a possession, more than an object of desire, but someone to be loved as an individual - mind, body, and soul - not just body. (Examples: Twelth Night and the one with Rosalind that I always forget the name of. ) In the historical romance novels it was the same deal - when she posed as a guy, she had respect, a career, a life outside of his - when she became a woman - it was all about him - keeping his house, wearing clothes to look pretty for him, pleasuring him and having his kids. This is why I stopped reading romances.

There are a couple of exceptions. Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles provide very strong and crafty women. All his equals. And Jane Austen provides women of similar strengths - she even makes fun of the fact that they have to give up themselves to become his wife. Austen like Lousia May Alcott never married and lived a solitary life - so many of her works are musings on what it would have been like to get with a man. As well as subtle and at times not so subtle critiques of the patriarchial society in which she lived.

When I read slash fanfiction by female writers - what I see is at times that role-playing. The female author is unintentionally perhaps fantasizing what it would be like to be in the male role. What would happen if we were treated not as "the weaker sex" or the frilly girl with the dress and the pet poodle? It's freeing in a way. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I wish I was a man or that I think it is easier to be a gay man in our society than a woman, it is not. I know that. And I don't. What I'm saying is the desire for equal status is what I'm feeling. Which is a fantasy.

The romance genre - I've always found to be ultimately unsatisfying because it does not speak to that fantasy so much as undermine it. Oh I'm sure there are romances out there that don't do this. Hybrids. You can find then in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and suspense. But strict romance?
Not so much.

If you are a fanfic writer, specializing in romance - I'll pose a challenge - see if you can create a non-conventional romance where the two characters are equal and the woman does not surrender to the man. Where the two are equals much in the same way they might be if they were both men. Would love to read a few. Find I have a craving for it. And it may explain why I liked Sunshine, some of the Charlain Harris novels - because she told the vamp lovers where to go, and the Jim Butcher novels - because the women in them told Dresden where to go with his outdated chivarly and gender problems. It's also why I adore the L Word and had been enjoying BSG up until the second season.

It's rare to find it. And I'm not sure why. Is it because most women fantasize about the surrender?
They want, and I admit so do I to an extent, to be dominated, to surrender to someone, to be "taken care of"? Is it because that's what we were taught by our mothers, teachers, friends, and tv? That we should want the endings told in fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella?

I don't know. But I do wonder every once and a while. And it is why I write, I think, or tell stories. Granted haven't gotten anything published and the way this book is coming, that may be a while. But hey, ain't dead yet. Got time.


[See? Scarey posts like the above is what happens when I'm unemployed for two days.]