Romance novels fall under the category of fantasy. Impossibly handsome, successful, alpha men sweep us off our feet and bring us to unbelievable orgasms using techniques we’d slap any real guy silly for even suggesting. Naturally, if you’re writing these books, you want to create a hero who fulfills the readers’ every fantasy. Physically beautiful, rich as hell but still cooks you dinner, IQ in the 200s but never makes you feel like an idiot, who loves your cat even though he’s allergic, and could have any woman in the world but wants you and you alone. Not to mention he has a schlong bigger than Tommy Lee’s, and he knows tricks in the bedroom even Ron Jeremy never heard of. We as writers use all the tropes with abandon, and throw in our own personal preferences to help make our fantasy men stand out.
Which is wherein my problem lies. It’s a darn good thing I was drawn to paranormal, because my character crushes over the years have been consistent and all point in the same direction. Namely, I dig the freaks.
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My first big-time crush on a TV character grew out of my favorite show, Star Trek. I realize Captain Kirk was the designated sex symbol, but he never did much for me. I fell for Spock. Pointy-eared, alien Spock, with the astronomical IQ and emotionless demeanor. No throwing punches for this action hero: he had the Vulcan nerve pinch, which was cooler than cool. Spock himself was cooler than cool. Yeah, okay, Shatner was easy on the eyes in those days, and artfully ripped his shirt in quite a few episodes. But put Kirk in a scene with Spock and my attention switched allegiance. Spock set the tone for my fictional hero crushes: tall, slender, intelligent, cool, loyal, with a dry sense of humor and just a hair off the norm. Sorry, Captain. Bring on the aliens!
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If watching big, overdeveloped males in combat is your thing, I recommend professional wrestling. I was a big fan for quite a few years. All those muscle men in spandex engaging in soap opera plots! Of course it’s all choreographed. That’s half the fun. I got more laughs out of wrestling matches than I did from sitcoms. And you can’t fake those physiques. Those guys work out, and it shows.
So, with literally dozens of fine physical specimens to crush on, who did I fall for? Kane. The silent, seven-foot guy in the mask. They built a whole
mythology around him. He was Undertaker’s younger brother, hideously scarred in a fire and bent on revenge. He never spoke. He was insane. He had long, stringy hair and a beautiful butt spandex was just made to mold to. The mask just added to the mystery. What was under there? What horrible secrets was he hiding? (Other than the fact he’d been wrestling for the WWE for years as other characters before he hit it big as Kane.) He was the perfect gothic hero, big and brooding and damaged, waiting for the right woman to save him with her love. Eventually he lost the mask (and that hair! NOOOOOOOOOOO!) and became just another big-muscled dude. That was the point I lost interest in wrestling. I notice he’s back in the mask now. Don’t mess with success.
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About two-three years back I discovered Supernatural. I came late to the party; fortunately, the library had seasons 1, 2, and 4, so I was able to catch up in a relatively short time. The heavy marathons probably contributed to my obsession with the show. And who did I fixate on? Castiel, angel of the Lord. Cute, cool, powerful, emotionless, dry sense of
humor, total badass, doesn’t quite get us humans. His only drawback is that Misha Collins isn’t as tall as Leonard Nimoy. Fortunately Jared Padalecki is. I can get my tall, slender guy fix watching Sam. Between the
two of them, I’ve got my perfect fantasy man. Dean? Nope. Sorry, Jensen, you’re too Captain Kirk for my taste. Try artfully ripping your shirt.
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My pattern of crushes continues. I started watching Grimm last season. The lead, Nick, is your standard TV paranormal hero: cute, competent, boring. Yawn. Right off the bat I was drawn to Monroe the werewolf. He’s funny and loyal and looks out for his friends, and he’s not
all that hard on the eyes. I’d date him in a second. As for Nick, I don’t think even ripping his shirt would make up for the lack of personality. Better luck on your next show, buddy.
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No wonder I don’t date much. I look for the weirdoes, the oddballs, the freaks, the folks on the edge of normalcy. My kind of people. With nice butts. Looks like it’s back to cruising SF conventions. In the meantime, I’d better write another book. My hero will be tall, intelligent, and inhuman. That’s the way I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh.
8 comments:
Okay, I always wanted a combo of Spock and Captain Kirk, only because of the sex angle. I mean who wants to wait, what was it? Seven years. While Kirk was out there boldly going where no man has gone before with the ladies.
And that... after years of other crushes... brings me to Adrian Paul as the Highlander... an immortal and a man for every season. Oh yeah!
These days, and men will hate me for saying this, but, hey, real men are the 'true rarity' on Earth right now. Why? One reason is, they've been effectively chemically castrated by pesticides and substances in plastic that mimic estrogen.
So, that's why I dream of an extraterrestrial, a shapeshifter, any Supernatural male who is a real, honest-to-god MAN. Please, an invasion by real man, oh, please!
And, hey, I might slap a man, but not for anything that happens to my heroines, unless they slap the hero... because I only write what I would desire as a woman, and as that heroine's persona.
Pat, fabulous blog. I did the Google share thing, even though I rarely do anything with it.
I don't even know what the Google share thing is. Fill me in?
Google has its own sorta Facebook setup. Which features circles, friends, family, authors, etc, whatever. I stupidly signed up before they went the FB route in their 'they own everything' policy and then discovered there's no way to get out of their system, as in deleting yourself.
And, really, how to manage the 'circles' crap is a confusing mess as far as I'm concerned, so I'm not active. Plus, it's on white screens which my eyes DO NOT appreciate.
I noticed on the top Blogger bar on the blog there is 'now' a way to 'share' your blog on Google Plus Circles. Since Google owns Blogger, and it might promo-reach someone else, I 'shared' it.
Okay, yeah, that explains the "share" button at the top of the blog. Well, anything that nets either of us more sales is a good thing.
Yep, that was my thought.
For the record: Spock was, to coin a phrase, fully functional all the time, but once every seven years he biologically HAD to mate. It was the Vulcan heat cycle or whatever. If you could give him a logical reason to indulge you, I sure he would have obliged. Otherwise the best you could do was keep an eye on the calendar.
Thanks for the info. It's been awhile since I focused on THE SPOCK. Yeah, I remember he was 'functional'. But, gosh, I suppose if you said you were going to die if you didn't have 'good' sex, and there was no other male around, he might 'indulge' you. But then, the spontaneous throes of passion are important to me, and keeping an eye on the calendar, not going to happen in my case. So, unless you're excellent at logic, or could activate his human side, which he resisted, it would become really tedious to garner a lusty response. However, I love THE SPOCK, and Leonard Nemoy.
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