Just a few random observations. But here is one thing I am NOT saying. And I am going to bold it and set it out so there is no confusion:
I am NOT criticizing romance readers for whom fantasy is a part — even a large part — of their engagement with the romance genre.
I think almost everyone who reads romance recognizes at least some fantasy element is operating for them at least some of the time. It may be as simple as “I don’t have to think for the moment about the stresses/challenges in my life as a mom/engineer/wife/doctor/CEO/caretaker/NASCAR driver/backyard chicken tamer” or “I don’t have to worry these characters will end up miserable or dead”.
But there are two kinds of fantasy engagement with romance, especially romance novel heroes, or real men who are supposed to represent them, that are fairly prevalent on line that I wanted to point out in this post.
1. Treating the characters as “real” in some sense outside the text
My first romance novel experience as an adult was J.R. Ward’s Lover Revealed. It was published in March 2007, which coincided with my spring break. I wanted to read some pulp fiction, something I had not had time to do for years, so I grabbed it off the drugstore shelf while on vacation in Florida. I was immediately hooked, and went to the author’s forums to check them out. I noticed right away the tendency of the “Cellies” to treat the characters as real. They gushed over the heroes, fantasized about them, used erotic pictures of men supposed to represent the BDB for their signatures, and generally interacted with the novels in a way that felt very alien to me.
Here are a couple of the ground rules at the J.R. Ward message boards, which give a sense of the tendencies to which some Cellies are prone:
10. Brother/Angel Ownership- There is NO Brother or Angel ownership. It will not be tolerated. The board is here for everyone to enjoy spending time with each other, J.R. Ward, and the Brotherhood. Let’s remember the Brothers’ books are written for everyone’s enjoyment.
11. Role-playing- There is to be NO role-playing here on the boards. It’s a form of copyright infringement and will not be tolerated.
Recently, another paranormal romance author, Karen Marie Moning, had to issue an Official Facebook Statement, and create official Facebook characters, because unofficial Facebook characters were harassing each other.
For those of you who wrote to tell me that my “unofficial” characters were being unkind to each other in ways that disturbed you, and that these unofficial Facebook pages—rather than making you interested in the books, were making you actively dislike the series and my characters—you now have a safe place to visit.
Lots of romance websites devote some or all of their time to this kind of fantasy. For example, DIK Ladies Rule is premised on the idea that bloggers can fantasize about bringing romance novel heroes to a desert island. Their tagline is “the island where women can go to escape their every day lives … where their favorite books are waiting … and the heroes are naked.”
And lots of other blogs fantasize in this way, too, such as Reviews by Jessewave, Leontine’s Book Realm, Smexy Books (with a page on “Smexy’s boyfriends”, with romance novel heroes). There’s even a Build Your Own Book Boyfriend meme. [I don't mean to single anyone out. I just randomly picked these, as examples. There are many more I could have chosen.]
2. Fantasizing about the cover models, about real men who might resemble the characters in the text, or about handsome men (especially actors) in general, as part of the romance reader discourse. For example, Penelope’s Romance Reviews, which has a “Beard of the Day”, and “Most Romantic Beard” posts, The Naughty Bits, Lust in Time, etc.
A lot of bloggers in romance will just do a post of good looking men in their underwear. When you think about it, what does that really have to do with romance novel reading? It seems connected to the way romance works as one kind of fantasy. If it were just about visualizing the text, then there would also be pictures of women, and ancestral estates, but there usually aren’t.
I tend to gravitate to bloggers who are more like me — fewer images in general, less emphasis on fantasy, more emphasis on romance as fiction.
This is not an invidious distinction. A lot of bloggers engage in multiple ways on their blogs with the genre: they’ll have the hot men, and then they’ll do a post on whitewashing of book covers, or the marginalization of GLBTQ romance, or they’ll write careful reviews. I think of Katiebabs as someone who “blogs across the board” like this. And any of the blogs mentioned above (so, for example, I get a lot of Apple news from Teddypig’s blog, and good reviews from Smexy Books, etc.). And while I would guess the “hot men” blogger may tend to focus on steamier books — “romantica” and the like — that’s not necessarily the case.
It’s also not an invidious distinction because there are bloggers like me who maybe don’t do much of it, but at least sometimes read those “hot men” posts or enjoy the images.
My personal tendency is to focus on my own preferred type of engagement. And my other tendency is to downplay the fantasy aspect, because it can feed pernicious stereotypes of the romance reader. But then, what doesn’t feed those stereotypes? As a professor who reads romance, I am a walking stereotype of a repressed bluestocking, right? Still, I think it would be interesting to think more about these types of overt fantasy engagements, because they are so obviously an important component of the way many women engage with romance. (And romance is not alone in this: speculative fiction is perhaps (?) the closest cousin to romance with regard to its fantasy function. Maybe this is connected to paranormal romance being the subgenre that jumped out when I was thinking about fantasy.)
I have read somewhere the notion that posting pictures of men in their undies (er, they probably don’t call them that, do they?) smacks of exploiting men. Certainly whole books have been written about the oppressive effects of the Adonis Complex, etc. I would have to think more about that.
On the other hand, from a feminist perspective, just as we sometimes talk about sexy romances and erotica as positive reclamation of women’s sexuality, maybe bloggers who are having fun with “hot men” — and they are having fun, a concept with which I am not especially familiar — are doing that too.
Then there’s just the personal comfort factor. The impetus for this post was actually finding images this week of full frontal male nudity in my Google reader, with no warning. I felt such bloggers had crossed a line, and deleted them from my reader.
It’s a testament to the diversity and flexibility and richness of the genre that any given text can serve many kinds of readers and many kinds of engagement.
Related posts:
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#1 by Ann Somerville on March 9, 2010 - 11:11 pm
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That’s just stupid, and rude. Penises go behind cuts and NSFW warnings. How hard is that to remember?
#2 by katiebabs on March 9, 2010 - 11:28 pm
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Aw thanks Jessica. Although, when I posted my interview with Julie James, it was the perfect excuse for me to post a few Ryan Reynolds pictures because of our undying respect *coughlustcough* for him.
But I can see why we romance readers like visuals. Take a look at the covers with the man chest, woman with the naked back or two half clothed couples embracing on a bed. All very sexual and visually stimulating to get us to pick up the book and read it.
I am all for showing a nice male chest but full frontal nudity? Not for me.
#3 by Amber on March 9, 2010 - 11:53 pm
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“1. Treating the characters as “real” in some sense outside the text”
I think this is a relatively new phenomenon for romance. Certainly within the last 15 years. It is not, however, a new thing for fiction readers in general.
Science Fiction and Fantasy readers have been doing this for decades. Think of the Trekkies. The online role playing games. Dungeons and Dragons. There’s a kind of public ownership that builds among fan bases. Something that intellectual property owners struggle to manage. I think that mentality has bled over into romance–primarily with paranormal romance.
I don’t notice the same tendencies in the historical or contemporary subgenres.
‘“I don’t have to worry these characters will end up miserable or dead”.’
This is why I read romance. I was a history and lit person in college. You could say I overdosed on what is considered ‘literature’ these days. Meaning, pretty much everyone dies or wants to die. It’s depressing. And I use romance as a way to guarantee that my chosen method of escapism won’t leave me just as depressed as the “serious” literature out there.
The hot men pics aren’t really my thing. But I tend to think that it’s not really that different than the scantily clad women in Fantasy art.
#4 by Nicola O. on March 10, 2010 - 12:11 am
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As a professor who reads romance, I am a walking stereotype of a repressed bluestocking, right?
Clearly, you just need a cowboy or a demolitions expert to give you a taste of modern-day danger (but not too much danger) and teach how to unpin that too-tight bun.
I have been doing less bloghopping from work in the last months because so many of the blogs I follow have images on them that I don’t want to pop up on my work terminal.
It’s not to say I don’t enjoy a little of that, I do; but there’s more than I really want overall. I’ve considered splitting my blogroll into “usually SFW” and “not usually SFW” lists (I kind of use my blogroll as a feed/reader).
I do think a couple of images per post helps the reading experience — gives the eye a place to focus, a place to rest. Blogs like Tumperkin’s and Carolyn Crane’s were very instructive to me as a newbie — my first posts were just blocks of text and I think they’re less appealing to read.
#5 by Chris on March 10, 2010 - 12:35 am
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It would be helpful if Google Reader honored “cuts”…
I’m in an interesting spot, having slowly transitioned from a knitting/cat blog to a general reading to mostly m/m reading/cat blog with hints of knitting. I have readers from every step of the way, and it’s fascinating (particularly to the part of my brain that would’ve been happy to follow the academic path) how that works out.
It’s probably most visible during my Misadventures in Stock Photography and erotic romance contest posts – initially, I got some chiding comments/emails about the nekkid torsos, but that’s mostly died down. Now some of the same people who were initially aghast at the “nudity” (no peen! I show no peen!) enter the contests and comment freely on the Misadventures.
Hmm. Pretty rambly, that.
#6 by Shannon C. on March 10, 2010 - 2:36 am
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Heh, you must love my blog then, with its… utter lack of graphics of any kind. *G*
Actually, as a blind reader, the image-heavy blogs kind of perplex me. I always wonder if my taste in hot men would match that of the bloggers who post that kind of picture. What if it doesn’t? But since we will never know unless a magical cure for my blindness happens randomly, I usually end up skipping those posts even if they do contain good content.
#7 by willaful on March 10, 2010 - 2:58 am
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I have always a little uncomfortable with this. On the Georgette Heyer listserve, some people would declare themselves the true love of this or that hero and have mock duels with others who declared similar interest, and it always baffled me. To me, the whole point of a romance is that one character falls in love with another character and I myself have absoutely nothing to do with it. I’m not all that big on the eye-candy aspects of fandom either, but I pretty much just smile and nod and let people enjoy what they like, just as I hope they will smile and nod and let me enjoy the occasional insane Charlotte Lamb abusefest I like. (Which is not to say the exploitation issues, etc, are not worth writing about.)
#8 by Laura Vivanco on March 10, 2010 - 5:01 am
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Since you mention erotica, have you come across Erotica Cover Watch? It’s definitely not safe for work, by the way. Just thought I should warn you about that, given what you’d written. The authors, Kristina Lloyd and Mathilde Madden, have just posted their last post, but they’re leaving the blog up, and in their first post they explained why they’d started it:
Their “man candy Monday” pictures of men in and out of their “undies” were therefore part of a deliberate campaign to challenge the idea that all straight women will “identify” with a sexy woman (or a sexy woman’s body part(s) since some of the covers have headless women, etc) and find that sexy. They felt that since heterosexual women are attracted to men, there ought to be sexy men on the covers (a) for women readers to enjoy looking at and (b) so that women aren’t portrayed as the gender which are sex-objects, while men are positioned as the active viewers of sexual objects.
Personally, I’d rather not find any characters in romance sexy because, like Willaful, “To me, the whole point of a romance is that one character falls in love with another character and I myself have absolutely nothing to do with it.”
As for photos of naked men, it does depend on what kind of photos they are but generally I find them a bit threatening. Maybe it’s the poses, but they very often seem to me to be about showing/asserting the man’s power, even as he’s made the object of the female gaze. It feels like the equivalent of looking at a photo of a tiger. Even if the tiger looks tame for the moment, the rippling muscles make it clear that the tiger could easily get up and eat you if you got too close. Naked and semi-naked women aren’t generally photographed in the same way, it seems to me. And even if they were, I’m not sure that it would feel the same. I suppose it could well be the result of growing up in a culture where one’s always warned about rape, and warned to be wary of strange men and, thanks to greater awareness of date rape, even of men one knows fairly well, in case they turn out to be rapists.
#9 by KristieJ on March 10, 2010 - 7:35 am
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It was the hairstyles!! Honest, it was the hairstyles!!
Seriously though, I’m somewhat uncomfortable myself with some blogs focus on picture after picture of semi-nude men. It strikes me as a somewhat of a double standard. While I’m as red-blooded as the next girl, the driving force for me reading romance is the most basic of all – love triumphs. While living in the real world with all it’s stress and complications, love is the perfect antidote. And after reading all kinds of genres, I find the writing in romance among the very top.
As far as thinking the heroes are real people, Ron always had a lot more of an issue than I did with that. It bothered him that I was comparing him to “the guys in those romance books you read” and I was always pointing out that “uh, they are not real dear, they are someone’s IMAGINATION.”
#10 by Victoria Janssen on March 10, 2010 - 9:28 am
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I find romance blogs of nothing but pictures annoying, but only because I read romance blogs for the reviews and commentary.
However, that’s not because I think it’s demeaning to men – it might be to individual men, but to me that’s not the main issue.
When a man ogles pictures of naked women, he’s doing so from a position of social power, whether he realizes it or not. When a women ogles pictures of naked men, she’s fighting against that power and taking some of it for herself, whether she realizes it or not. I think that’s important to remember.
It’s our DUTY as women to ogle hot men! We have to make up for all those millenia of patriarchal oppression!
#11 by Sherry Thomas on March 10, 2010 - 9:35 am
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I am completely uninterested in the kind of men usually chosen to represent the heroes on romance covers, because in real life the only men I’ve seen with that kind of build are strippers and I leave the room to avoid having to get too close to the stripper at bachelorette parties.
I need to see a man in his clothes first, hear how he talks, see how he interacts with women and other men, before there is the remotest chance I’d want to see his naked chest.
#12 by janicu on March 10, 2010 - 10:03 am
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I’m not really one to go for the man-titty pictures. I don’t like seeing half-naked women on a site, and I don’t like seeing half-naked men either. I feel like oogling some abs, tanned bodies, giant muscles etc, which normal guys usually don’t have, is like praising a somewhat unattainable idea of perfection. Plus I don’t even LIKE the overmuscled gym addict look. I don’t know if I’m more sensitive because I’m very close to someone with really big body image issues so media and body image is something that I think about a lot. I’ve been to eating disorder clinics and while 90% of patients there were women, there are guys there too. It’s sad.
On the other hand, for these bloggers, it’s all for fun really, and it’s their blog, they can put up whatever they want. And there is still far more oogling of women in mainstream media than there is oogling of men.
#13 by Carolyn Jewel on March 10, 2010 - 10:49 am
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the exploitation issue. I’ve decided (but may change my mind) that we are in a transitional period in which women are freer than they have ever been to openly discuss and confront lust. There are instances that are bound to cross into insulting and exploitative. I’m uncomfortable with notion that some of the comments etc women make would be viewed quite differently coming from a man. In part, I see that as a product of the cultural imbalance.
Eventually, I expect and hope we reach a place where both genders can comment on lust — via text or image — without there being an implied sexism.
I admit my thoughts on this are nascent. I have more thinking to do on the subject.
#14 by Wendy on March 10, 2010 - 11:59 am
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OMG! This! This drives me insane! Wendy mad, Wendy smash!
The whole treating characters like real people thing really baffles me. I “get” the appeal of the Ward and KMM series (which I am reading and enjoying, although I’m 2 books behind ::sheepish::). But it’s FICTION. It’s NOT real. Sigh. A common criticism of the genre has been that “it gives women unrealistic expectations.” Which I’ve always found insulting because it implies that women are too bubble-headed and stupid to understand the difference between reality and fantasy.
And then in the face of that criticism you have fans getting into “wars” on Facebook. Ugh. I’m a live and let live kinda girl, but this one strains even for me.
But, this sort of thing happens in all genres I think. I mean, look at the uproar The Da Vinci Code caused. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with library patrons that resulted in me saying, “Uhhhh, it’s fiction dude. Seriously. F-i-c-t-i-o-n.”
On the stereotype front: I’ll see your bluestocking and raise you a spinster librarian
#15 by Lynn Spencer on March 10, 2010 - 12:05 pm
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I have to admit I’ve never understood the cover model drooling. This is probably in part because the heroes I visualize as I read rarely look like the guys on the covers. So, a lot of the “hot men” pictures just aren’t really my thing. In addition, I believe that romance is worth reading and deserves much more respect than it gets. For that reason, I tend to prefer focusing on the stories and the writing.
#16 by Teddypig on March 10, 2010 - 2:29 pm
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My thing is well… my thing. I like pictures. I like men.
I am visual first and foremost. I do not function typically in a cerebral way outside of work.
You might have the most well written book but if you package it in a god awful cover. Well, I find that a major obstacle despite anything I might be able to say positively about the book in my blog. If my words sit there with an ugly cover no one is gonna buy it no matter how much I crow about how great it is.
So I treat my blog the same way I see people buy eBooks.
It’s visual, it celebrates I hope really cool cover art and really well loved stories.
Notice I don’t say anything about “great writing”.
I think there is a difference.
“Great writing” is cool but even the most perfectly edited eBook with the most exceptional grammar written with the absolute pinnacle of prose is still not guaranteed to be loved by a majority of readers. Appreciated for quality maybe, loved by the critics and intelligentsia maybe, but not “loved”. Loved is an emotional reaction to an intangible not a level of excellence defined by lack of spelling errors.
I would rather read the crappiest sentence structure in the world but “love” the potential of the story being told to me. I would rather drool on mantitty cover art forever more than have to ignore the fact that so many ePubs have no taste whatsoever and think Photoshop cut and pate collage jobs or Poser mannequins are nifty.
That’s partly because first and foremost I am a consumer at heart that buys every book I have reviewed even if they are given to me by the author, I still buy them if I love them enough to think they deserve a mention.
And partly because I think those type of decisions are simple and straight forward for the current type of reader most people want to attract who will shell out the cash to buy the book and should be of a high priority for any author in order to frame the story being told.
So no, not every eBook needs a mantitty cover and when I see it going over board I sometimes point out examples where it was plainly not needed and distracted from the cover. Likewise I will also make a point to show covers with no mantitty that I think are gorgeous too.
Full frontal… well I think some pictures I have run into I would love to post because they are art to me but I keep the blog at a set level. I think people so far have been enjoying the random picture I put up now and then. If not I would hope they would tell me when they see anything they think is in poor taste I can take stuff down it’s not a requirement. I like the pics but I can keep them to myself.
But generally most of my readers seem to like the naked mens. So *shrug* who knows.
#17 by Moriah Jovan on March 10, 2010 - 3:19 pm
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I can’t say much one way or another. I put girl titty on my cover, and it’s certainly eye-catching, but more importantly it speaks to elements of the story I couldn’t have captured any other way.
#18 by RStewie on March 10, 2010 - 3:28 pm
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I have never felt comfortable with the whole “fantasizing about heroes” thing with Romance. I don’t think Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy is swoony, I am not impressed with cover models as sex objects, and I find it very awkward to read people that do.
I went to Ward’s site once and she had all these “interviews” with her heroes and I thought it was very embarrassing to read. Like being at the theater and someone has dressed up in costume to see the movie…and it’s not opening night, and they’re the only one that did. Reading about women who are “fighting over” or “claiming” a Romance hero as “theirs” is like…watching a teenager embarrass themself with their first crush . It’s just SO uncomfortable to me.
I know that this is because I am very introverted about my reading…specifically about the views I have of specific relationship themes. I am fine with critiqueing writing, but I am not as forthcoming sharing what about the hero made him heroic to me. It’s very personal, I think.
But then again, maybe that’s not it, and it’s more that I KNOW people make fun of cos-play and role-playing and these other things, and I hate the idea of that about anything that I am doing. I could be one of those people, a Trekkie or a Ren Fair fanatic or something, but I would be made fun of, and so I couldn’t be one of those people…I can’t handle the idea of people laughing at me. The fun would be lost in my embarrassment.
So I avoid that stuff. I like looking at nudie men, of course, but to pretend they are a hero from a novel, or that I want a relationship with them, or something like that…I can’t do it.
#19 by Chris on March 10, 2010 - 3:41 pm
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TP wrote:
We do, TP, we do!
I wonder if part of this is the intersection of two very different parts of Romance Bloglandia – romance and erotic romance?
#20 by Moriah Jovan on March 10, 2010 - 4:00 pm
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@RStewie:
I don’t understand grown women who do that either, but I kind of look at it like this: Everybody has their hobbies, their passions. That’s theirs. I don’t understand the attraction of bird watching or collecting stamps, either.
It took me about 2 years into my marriage to grok that my husband’s TV watching WAS his hobby and he was perfectly happy with that hobby and I had no right to devalue what he found valuable about it.
(I DO understand RenFaire, though because I’m a costume hound and I have been a costumer. I love the fabrics and textures and colors and if I had time or fewer hobbies I loved more, I’d be into RenFaire just to have an excuse to wear some of those beautiful clothes.)
So while I may have all sorts of (not flattering) opinions about such things, I do get that that’s their passion, the way they blow off steam–and I think everybody should have a passion. Maybe even an obsession.
#21 by Teddypig on March 10, 2010 - 4:33 pm
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@Chris:
I have been thinking a great combo would be to simply break the rules and go for it.
Porn and Romance, the in your face final blow the lid off blog.
#22 by Jocelyn Z. on March 10, 2010 - 4:54 pm
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I agree with most of what others have said, I love romance novels, but the characters are just characters to me – I have no desire to interact with them and I like them better because they’re not real people.
On the other hand, I’m not totally emotionally divorced from the books I read – I tend to get really angry with book characters. I was thinking about this earlier today, after replying to one of your twitter posts. I have a real problem with a specific book where the heroine behaves badly and then has a sex scene ten pages later. I know why the heroine’s bad behavoir bothered me. Why did the sex scene placement make me so mad, though? She hadn’t been shitty towards the hero, so it’s not like the scene placement made no sense.
I think it’s because when you get to that point in the book, I’m not just looking to be turned on (though in all honesty, I think that’s a nice side effect), I want to be happy for the characters, and excited that they’re at a turning point in their relationship, and hopeful for them, and interested in the rest of the plot. While reading this unnamed romance, I was still so mad at the heroine during the sex scene that I didn’t get any of that out of it, despite really good writing in the first half of the book. That makes me think that in a good book, I believe in the characters within the confines of the story, while I’m reading it – even though I know someone is pulling their strings.
So why am I angry at that character when I don’t give characters I like any sort of life outside of their narritive?
Maybe because I’m comfortable with having a great opinion of an author, or a bad opinion of one, but this story left me utterly confused and I don’t want to look at that author and think “Gosh, you wrote a great story and ruined it.” Even though that’s what actually happened. It’s easier to be mad at the heroine than to accept that the author made some terrible choices.
#23 by RStewie on March 10, 2010 - 5:28 pm
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@Moriah Jovan: Honestly, the really funny thing about my hang-ups are that my SO and friends (and family) all already think I’m a little off. I’m a little strange to them, and these kinds of things (Trekkies, RenFaire, ComicCon) are things they would almost expect me to do, because they think I’m weird.
And I am weird. But I’m also not. The whole public part of it is what throws me–it’s so in the open and blatantly out there. So when I see grown women squealing about Zadist and how they want to wrap him up and take him home…I am ill at ease to handle it.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, though. By all means, people should do what they enjoy doing, and my opinion of it or hang-ups about it shouldn’t impact them. I just wish I understood the motivation to immerse yourself so thoroughly, without regard to reality.
#24 by Elizabeth Jules Mason on March 10, 2010 - 6:15 pm
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Interesting and thought provoking post.
I guess I am more easy going than some, because none of that bothers me at all.
If someone gets caught up in a character, so what? I don’t believe anyone takes it seriously, its just in fun or immaturity. It’s also great for the author and promoting sales of items if the book character makes it to the big screen like the Twilight movies. Stephenie Meyer is a millionaire because people fell in love with her characters and won’t let go. That’s just good news for the author. I’ve got no problems with that.
As for full frontals on blogs…to each their own. I know which blogs tend to lean toward the erotic and sometimes have steamy photos…I know not to read or view them when others are around. I wouldn’t stop reading them because a photo of nude male was shared, I’m not intimidated or flustered by naked photos. I think the male body is gorgeous and viewing it doesn’t bother me at all, but I wouldn’t view it at work or in front of children.
Near naked men on book covers… more often than not that actually turns me off the book because I don’t need that to sell me a book. I am not a cover buyer, I buy from the blurb or authors name. I’d be perfectly happy with a plain black cover with only the title and author name on it.
I’d like to ask a question, if I may. Your blog used to be called “Racy” Romance Reviews correct? Is it that you were OK with reading “racy” books but you didn’t want to see anything “racy” on a blog review or the book cover of one of those ‘racy’ books? Is that why you’ve changed the name of your blog? Just curious…
Thanks,
and again, good thought provoking post.
MsM
#25 by Moriah Jovan on March 10, 2010 - 7:09 pm
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@RStewie: I actually do understand where you’re coming from. My family’s always surprised when I spout tax code and they realize—hey, she’s not that much of a ditz after all! They forget that in a day or so.
#26 by Marianne McA on March 11, 2010 - 4:49 am
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I’m uncomfortable about the pictures of semi-nude men. At the stage I was a teenager, it was not uncommon to see pictures of semi-naked women (page 3 girls) in workplaces, and there was, I suppose, a kind of public debate that went on about that that I half-absorbed into my value system.
Basically, the upshot was that I felt I was entitled to feel uncomfortable about pictures of semi-nude women being on display, and that however happy the women were to be photographed, and however happy men were to look at those photographs, I had to live in a culture where breasts were sexualised to a ridiculous extent, and I had the right to find that objectionable. To not want those pictures on the wall of the police station, or wherever.
I was a ludicrously busty – and shy – teenager and men who addressed entire conversations to my breasts made me feel weird. I don’t know that I ever properly thought through the femininist ideology, more just accepted with joy the idea that those sort of pictures were inappropriate in a public space. But even in private, I’ve still a knee-jerk reaction against those sort of photos, and it turns out the gender of the model doesn’t make a difference. (Though I do think the ones of men peering hopefully down into their trousers are killingly funny: what do they expect to see?)
Maybe it depends whether you see blogging as a public or private activity – whether it’s equivalent to hanging a girlie calendar in your place of work, or in your kitchen. Perhaps a lot of bloggers would see it as the latter.
Or possibly Teddypig was right in saying they’re something you enjoy more if you’re a visual person – I’m mostly not.
#27 by RStewie on March 11, 2010 - 9:02 am
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@Moriah Jovan: Exactly. Which is hilarious to me, because Hello?? I negotiate contracts for a living?? But yeah. I think it’s my own hang-ups that make it so objectionable for me to be one of “those people”.
#28 by Amber on March 11, 2010 - 11:15 am
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I’ve been thinking about this tendency to treat characters as real, and remembered something from a long ago lit class.
The book is Charlotte Temple, often considered America’s first bestseller (despite originally being published in England). And way back in the 1790s, we had people who treated these characters as real. Who actually wept at fake graves. Who not only believed this book was real (perhaps because the title was originally Charlotte Temple: a Tale of Truth), but who genuinely grieved for someone they had only read about.
And the author, Susanna Rowson, acknowledged that this was a book written for women by a woman.
So clearly the tendency to personally connect to a fictional character isn’t new.
#29 by Kaetrin on March 12, 2010 - 5:42 am
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I don’t think I’d like to get a full frontal nude pic – male or female popping up unexpectedly, but I don’t mind a bit of ogling – clothed or otherwise. I do confess to visiting various Gerard Butler websites a few times a week to check out the new pics of him!!!
Most of the ebooks I read don’t even have a cover (but that’s a whole other beef) – just a boring title page. Of the paperbooks, I don’t favour mantitty – but I don’t buy books because of the cover. I generally go on previous experience with that author or trusted reviews.
As for the character thing, I always looked at it as a way to get extra bits – sort of like deleted scenes from a movie. If I’ve really enjoyed a book and like the character, then I don’t mind “spending a bit more time with them” with scenes or information that wouldn’t have advanced the story necessarily but that nevertheless help to fill out the character as a, well, character.
Suz Brockmann has posted some “interviews” with some of her characters and they’re a hoot.
I haven’t been to the BDB boards for ages – I can’t remember my logon even if it still worked – but I do remember thinking it a bit of harmless fun when “Wrath” would come on the board. The best parts, IMO, though, were the shorts that Ward posted – scenes that weren’t in the books. But, then I went off BDB and stopped visiting. It was a huge time suck anyway!
#30 by Carolyn Crane on March 12, 2010 - 8:41 am
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Carolyn Jewel says:
This is a good point – I’ve long seen the mantitty thing as a pendulum swinging way the other way issue, and really, I was happy to see this post exploring this and related issues. Book covers tend to be the only mantitty I put on my blog, but that’s me, and I’m fine with what people put up elsewhere.
I think blogs can be a safe place for women to explore and play with sexuality and I see a lot of it as expression that’s coming out of the pendulum Zeitgeist which will naturally morph over time. (incidentally, the Pendulum Zeitgeist will be the monster hero in my next UF series.)
On the choosing heroes, I’ve long seen it as sort of analogous to fantasy football or something. But clearly from your post, wow, some people take it way too far.
Jessica, I love that you say this:
#31 by Maili on March 12, 2010 - 8:41 am
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@Marianne McA:
Well, I’m quite a visual person and I still feel uncomfortable with it.
Some time ago I said I didn’t like clinch covers, especially with half-naked couples, I was accused of being prudish, but I knew it was never about that. I just couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.
That was until you mentioned those days when Page 3 was a common sight. And later, those dreaded Chippendales. So yeah, you’re right. At least in my case, you are.
I think I associate Page 3 with those two crappy decades (Thatcher, Blair, Tebbitt, Scargill, union strikes, riots, unemployment, National Front, nuclear bases in Scotland, the Troubles, the bombings, and many more). Racism, sexism, feminism and so on were tackled heavily, too, in film, music, and the media from 1970s to early 1990s. Carry On… films were phased out; comedians like Bernard Manning were questioned (and deservedly so as I can’t STAND that man), and the Mary Whitehouse thing. So many socio-political changes. It was totally fked. I think Page 3 was seen as the Last (Cultural) Frontier, which was – as you say – subjected to a raging cultural war between two sides. Or three if we have to include Mary Whitehouse.
It affected almost everyone in this country, which might explain why some feel uncomfortable with soft porn (which it is) in public places. I think seeing half-naked men/women on blogs (and to some extent, clinch covers) remind me of those times. The titillating kind, not the ‘artistic’ kind. It’s not about bloggers. Not about those images. It’s about what it represents. Or rather, what it’s associated with. And yet it’s different in context of cinema and music. It’s hard to explain, really.
There have been times when I felt Romantic Times’s Mr Romance contest was the romance community’s answer to Page 3 tour**. I really did feel that way.
**similar to a wet t-shirt contest
#32 by katiebabs on March 12, 2010 - 9:37 am
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I do admit I like seeing a nice man tush every now and again but some pictures where everything is all hanging out and you see that first thing in the morning may blind you.
#33 by Jessica on March 12, 2010 - 10:07 am
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I am just chiming in to thank everyone for your insightful contributions. This is one of those cases where I have pretty much said everything I wanted to in the post, and am enjoying sitting back and reading the different viewpoints.
I really appreciate it that people who enjoy the man candy are not feeling overly defensive because that it wasn’t my intention to be critical when I write the post.
#34 by Tumperkin on March 14, 2010 - 5:44 pm
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I am very late to this, however, I think there are a few issues within this. As regards why bloggers post such pictures, in many cases I think it’s often just a case of filler for the blog. Other bloggers comment and appear receptive so it’s just an easy thing to do to create content.
A more interesting question is the extent to which this relates – if at all – to romance reading. When I think of the blogs that seem to do this a lot, it tends to be blogs that are more receptive to more explicit and erotic romance, right up to the like sof Erotica Cover Watch – that has a clear agenda on the presentation of erotic reading material for straight women – that Laura has already mentioned.
#35 by Kris on March 15, 2010 - 12:23 am
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Hi Jessica. A few thoughts come to mind after reading your post. First, I am fairly new to the romance genre (and my first taste was with the BDB series, too).
But aside from that, (although I have not personally witnessed everything you mentioned), it does not strike me as surprising that women have engaged in the practices you described. People have a tendency to become very involved, even to the point of exhibiting ownership behavior, with characters and stories they enjoy. Roleplay is, of course, quite common across medium and genres; a recent example of this outside of romance novels would be those who dress up (costume, makeup, and all) as the characters of Avatar and re-enact the movie. Most of it seems like harmless fun, but if an author is forced to establish boundaries between their characters and their fans, I’ll agree that those fans have taken their fantasy engagements too far.
Also, in regards to the argument that heterosexual fantasy engagement with romance novels is 1) a form of male exploitation and 2) a form of female empowerment, I would say that I agree with both assertions. I could write a lot more about this, but suffice it to say that I find the tendency for women to fantasize about romance characters through online roleplay or the display and dissemination of visual representations of male literary characters a refreshing (and relatively scarce) example of the flip side of male eroticization of femininity. Not that any type of sexual exploitation is necessarily a good thing, but it is nice to see women flexing their abilities to engage in the type of erotic fantasies that men do.
#36 by Mandi on March 15, 2010 - 6:47 am
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My boyfriend list makes me giggle – honestly. I have had so much fun “swooning” over heroes this past year. Do I walk around my house talking to imaginary people – no
(not yet..HA!)
It is just entertaining to me, but I can totally see where some people shake their head and move onto the next blog. My google reader is a place of much diversity..and that is what we need in romanceland.
#37 by Penelope on March 15, 2010 - 7:29 am
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Since my Penelope blog is mentioned here, I am feeling compelled to leave a comment. First, let me say that I can’t believe my beard fetish has gotten me into hot water with the “blogger police”–who knew that I would be labelled a “hot men blogger”! I am a bit distressed that I have been clumped together with wackadoodles who role play characters from books in an unhealthy manner, and people posting pornographic photos. My “beard of the day” posts started as a joke in response to my critique partners who did not understand my fascination with facial hair, and my misguided attempts to lure them over to the dark side.
From an author’s point of view, having visual inspiration for one’s writing is critical. Many writers have a collage of images they use for each book, including photos of setting and characters. It is vitally important for an author to have a clear image of her hero and heroine while writing a novel, and that may include “beefcake” photos, etc….whatever it takes to make the characters come alive.
My bottom line opinion about this topic is not to judge. I think it’s fantastic that each and every romance blog has its own personality, some racier than others. Viva romance!