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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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:

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.

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!

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.