[RaeC]

lol, it's true, I don't read romance or erotica. I suppose it just feels to me that watching people on the bottom rungs of humanity have sex (or reading about it I suppose) doesn't feel as...naughty? as watching the wealthier deviants.

Then again, I spent most of my career in tech removing pornography from residential and commercial/enterprise computers. So I've maybe seen it all (trust me, I've seen it all) and don't really know what the line between normal and deviant is anymore. I suppose also that I would treat erotica like pornographic videos...stop acting and just get to the sex. I'm not interested in the backstory of how the pizza delivery man ended up lucking out and getting Mrs. Jones' delivery, nor any backstory about how lonely poor old Mrs. Jones is because her husband is always at work, probably shagging his secretary as well.

Blah blah blah just get to the sex.

Which is why I'm not a good candidate for romance/erotica.

Plus I'm a dude. Not that dudes can't be into romance/erotica. But dudes tend to have different views of those subjects than women. All you have to do is watch pornography to see that men see things MUCH differently. A man's fantasy typically involves very little romance and a lot of headboard knocking (in about 32 different positions, some that will pull a hamstring or cause an anterior ligament hyper-extension or such if not done correctly). All that 'anticipation' and 'passion' and 'romance' are just words that mean 'you have to wait a little longer to get sexed' to us. (again, not all of us, but I'm a pretty good observer of men...especially since I've had to subject myself to their pornographic viewing habits for more than a decade).

Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't write a roMANce book of my own. It might only be three pages long though. Fortunately, I know better than to attempt this. My novella, since it is tagged LGBT-friendly, shared a position at Smashwords for about three weeks with an erotica book called "In My Daughter's [rear]" (don't want to break forum rules even though the title is a real title lol). Written by a man. The description alone made me a little queasy. And $3.99 for about 30 pages? I think it was something like 12k words or 14k words.

I'm not knocking it. Everyone should write what they want (within reason...I'm not down with kiddie porn or kiddie erotica at all, nor rape or torture).

Maybe if I was a billionaire...

I'm trying to imagine what tropes around which male-centered romances would revolve? Sexy librarians? Xena-like Amazonians? Frustrated housewives? Potty-mouthed nuns? Demure alien cat-princesses who want to breed?

I have no doubt we guys would gravitate towards some hilarious themes.

 

[Nicole Castro]

"Demure alien cat-princesses who want to breed?" LMAO 

 

[RaeC]

"Demure alien cat-princesses who want to breed?" LMAO

As a man, i would so pay good money for that story if Hugh Howey or Selena Kitt wrote it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"Demure alien cat-princesses who want to breed?" LMAO

*sulkily moves manuscript to trash bin*

 

[AngryGames]

I'm trying to imagine what tropes around which male-centered romances would revolve? Sexy librarians? Xena-like Amazonians? Frustrated housewives? Potty-mouthed nuns? Demure alien cat-princesses who want to breed?

I have no doubt we guys would gravitate towards some hilarious themes.

*sigh* Sometimes I'm ashamed to be male honestly. Not that I haven't had my own deviant thoughts (and/or experiences, I'm getting old and was pretty wild in my younger years). Plenty of hilarious themes no doubt, but the ones that make me cringe are...

I'm totally down with the 'furries' (dressing up like the cartoon animals I guess?), or the Amazonian women who are 6' 6" and keep a man as a sex slave (these are standard fare for sure). Stuff like that.

It's the weird stuff that I've found that men seem to like, and in more than just a 'oh I just got that linked by a friend, I was checking it out because it was funny' thing. Because people don't have an entire folder of water sports or German scheiße porn that involves solid bodily wastes if they were just 'checking it out because a friend told them it was funny'.

And this is why roMANce (my wife HATES it when I say/write it this way) is very different than romance. Women probably are okay with a little domination or bondage (or a lot, I've met plenty that are definitely confident enough in their sexuality to not be ashamed, and that's a good thing), but I would imagine that they'd draw the line at actual degradation or torture. Then again I suppose it depends on where each person draws the line at degradation or torture, or any number of things of that nature. I haven't met any women in real life that are into bestiality, but I've met a lot of men who apparently are into watching women have relations with animals.

They of course would never admit to such a thing, but when their computer is either unable to boot into Windows, or worse, boots into Windows and immediately opens 36 browser windows, all to some of the raunchiest porn imaginable, and I get called into take care of it before wife/girlfriend/mother gets home and needs to check her email...and oh look, 3GB of this stuff already stuffed into a folder (some 'hidden' folders, like I'm not going to figure out what they've done?). And no, I don't snoop through their files, but when infections come from pornography, it's so very obvious, and along with cleaning the infection, I'm usually instructed to get rid of the evidence.

Oh, and any man that says he doesn't look at internet pornography...is a liar. There might be a man in the world that doesn't have an internet connection or device that is exempt, but no, probably not even then. If a man will admit he watches porn or looks at it on the net/computer, that's a man that is usually trustworthy and honest. Any man that won't admit it...

 

[Christa Wick]

*sulkily moves manuscript to trash bin*

Put that back in the active folder now, Sir! If someone can conceive of it, others will buy it.

 

[Gennita Low]

<snip>

Oh, and any man that says he doesn't look at internet pornography...is a liar. There might be a man in the world that doesn't have an internet connection or device that is exempt, but no, probably not even then. If a man will admit he watches porn or looks at it on the net/computer, that's a man that is usually trustworthy and honest. Any man that won't admit it...

My roofing partner does not look at internet pornography. He doesn't know how to turn on his computer for school or even remember how to read his own school email after a semester break. And watching him try to type an URL is like waterboarding myself because...you know...I can do it a whole lot faster. I can say 100 percent that the man does not do porn on the Net. So there is one person for the exception .

 

[RaeC]

*sigh* Sometimes I'm ashamed to be male honestly. Not that I haven't had my own deviant thoughts (and/or experiences, I'm getting old and was pretty wild in my younger years). Plenty of hilarious themes no doubt, but the ones that make me cringe are...

I'm totally down with the 'furries' (dressing up like the cartoon animals I guess?), or the Amazonian women who are 6' 6" and keep a man as a sex slave (these are standard fare for sure). Stuff like that.

It's the weird stuff that I've found that men seem to like, and in more than just a 'oh I just got that linked by a friend, I was checking it out because it was funny' thing. Because people don't have an entire folder of water sports or German scheiße porn that involves solid bodily wastes if they were just 'checking it out because a friend told them it was funny'.

And this is why roMANce (my wife HATES it when I say/write it this way) is very different than romance. Women probably are okay with a little domination or bondage (or a lot, I've met plenty that are definitely confident enough in their sexuality to not be ashamed, and that's a good thing), but I would imagine that they'd draw the line at actual degradation or torture. Then again I suppose it depends on where each person draws the line at degradation or torture, or any number of things of that nature. I haven't met any women in real life that are into bestiality, but I've met a lot of men who apparently are into watching women have relations with animals.

They of course would never admit to such a thing, but when their computer is either unable to boot into Windows, or worse, boots into Windows and immediately opens 36 browser windows, all to some of the raunchiest porn imaginable, and I get called into take care of it before wife/girlfriend/mother gets home and needs to check her email...and oh look, 3GB of this stuff already stuffed into a folder (some 'hidden' folders, like I'm not going to figure out what they've done?). And no, I don't snoop through their files, but when infections come from pornography, it's so very obvious, and along with cleaning the infection, I'm usually instructed to get rid of the evidence.

Oh, and any man that says he doesn't look at internet pornography...is a liar. There might be a man in the world that doesn't have an internet connection or device that is exempt, but no, probably not even then. If a man will admit he watches porn or looks at it on the net/computer, that's a man that is usually trustworthy and honest. Any man that won't admit it...

at some of the things you've seen on people's computers.

While I think--no, I know--a good portion of men enjoy the snuff smut with the requisite amount of shame, I'm not sure if that strictly does the concept of roMANce (I like writing it this way) justice. (Hear me out, I'm trying to give us the benefit of the doubt.) There's a reason why a romance is always thrown into action movies, and it's not just because of the female demographic. Men want to identify themselves as the rock star and hero, they want to engage in sarcasm filled, physical foreplay, they want to save the tough damsel princess, and in the end, they want to show her how a real, tough-as-nails (yet good hearted) man pleases his woman. Domination, sure, rough sex, okay, but pure degradation...I don't think many men could stomach it any more than their wives or daughters. Not even if the heroine were dressed as a furry buxom cat-princess from Mars. We enjoy our fetishes and the undercurrents of misogyny that comes with them, but there are limits. Oh god, I would hope, anyway.

I'm a comic book fan, and this is sort of a big thing right now. Superhero comics are basically a big male power fantasy with costume fetishes where the hero often gets to save his powerful, yet vulnerable, partner from malicious forces that threaten virtue. Just as a lot of men scoff at traditional romance/erotica, a lot of women feel the same about superheros, and there's a lot of thought about how that can change.

 

[Alan Petersen]

As long as people keep searching for billionaire books, writers will be happy to provide new books for them to purchase...

Readers are happy, authors are happy, win, win.

 

[valeriec80]

Oh, come on, there are totally romance stories for men.

We usually call them "coming of age" stories, though.

They're typically about some guy who's a little shy or geeky or socially awkward, and for some reason he manages to score a date with a very pretty girl (often this is through both the goading of a male friend and some kind of serendipitous something that happens with her, like a fight with her hunky, but not-very-sensitive boyfriend right before the hero comes along and asks her out). Then the guy spends the rest of the story trying to prepare for the date, but then has an epiphany that he'll just be himself. And then it turns out that this girl is really down to earth and sweet and not shallow in the slightest bit, and that her current life is completely frustrating for her, because she's surrounded by people who aren't "real," and that she and the hero really connect on an amazing level. (Why it is that she has spent all her life being around "shallow" people and engaging in "shallow" activities is never really explained, but it's not important. The important thing is that the geeky guy has gotten the pretty girl. Of course, this being a male romance, they don't have to live happily ever after. It's completely satisfying if this is just a one-time experience between the two of them, because now the geeky boy is more confident and can go out and score other pretty girls.)

Seriously, how many times you seen that movie?

I'm not saying that female romances are not ridiculous wish fulfillment. But male romances are too.

And generally, I think the reason that most men don't like romance novels is not because they don't like stories about falling in love, or because they don't like the anticipation leading up to the consummation, but because they recognize that the typical male romance hero is an utterly unrealistic fantasy--probably the kind of guy that they hate. And, even more importantly, they don't see themselves anywhere in the story. There's no one for them to identify with.

What's this thread supposed to be about again? Billionaires? Hey, I wrote one of those. Vigil! (Currently in my sig if you're interested. It's like Bruce Wayne plus Gideon Cross equals Callum Rutherford. Utter ridiculous wish fulfillment, btw. )

 

[Nicole Castro]

My novella The Appleton House is written from the male perspective. I'd love to have more MALE reviews... HINT HINT.

 

[Ty Johnston]

What about:

Romeo and the Billionaire
The Two Billionaires of Verona
A Midsummer Night's Billionaire
The Billionaire of Venice
The Merry Billionaires of Windsor
Much Ado About Billionaires
The Two Noble Billionaires
The Taming of the Billionaire
MacBillionaire

Let us not forget the more modern classics ...

The Bridges of Billionaire County
The DaBillionaire Code
A Game of Billionaires
Zen and the Art of Billionaires
Hunger Billionaires
The Billionaire Traveler's Wife
Harry Potter and the Billionaires of the Billionaires

... uh, maybe I'm taking this too far.

 

[JRTomlin]

I'm trying to imagine what tropes around which male-centered romances would revolve? Sexy librarians? Xena-like Amazonians? Frustrated housewives? Potty-mouthed nuns? Demure alien cat-princesses who want to breed?

I have no doubt we guys would gravitate towards some hilarious themes.

It's not hard to find out what male-centered romances are like, although they're never called romances. Just take a look at books like A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger or The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and what you have are male-centered romances.

 

[karen21]

Maybe billionaires are just more grounded than regular people, they're probably deeply connected to the world around them (also below them, from their private helicopters).

Obviously the perceived fantasy element is that they are detatched from the humdrum every day grind and can focus all their attention on showering their lovers with gifts and elaborate romance. But we are a culture of escalation and soon Billionaires won't even be able to offer enough and there will be a long line of romance novels about missunderstood island-nation dictators and the women who taim them.

Maybe the only way to strike back is to write a nice tale about a balding, middle-aged man toiling in his job as a team-leader for the bottled-water company's call center. Show how he manages to find the love of his life at a gambler's anonymous meeting and showers her with impromptu gas station gifts of roses in plastic tubing and mutliple types of fruit flavored gum.

The book focuses on exploring their aging bodies body image issues and their awkward passionate moments filled with out of shape wheezing and lackluster sexual encounters... In the end, they buy a sofa together.

hmmm.... kinda got off topic there.

Made me laugh; a great way to start the day, thanks.

Off to write the plot for that book.

 

[AngryGames]

My roofing partner does not look at internet pornography. He doesn't know how to turn on his computer for school or even remember how to read his own school email after a semester break. And watching him try to type an URL is like waterboarding myself because...you know...I can do it a whole lot faster. I can say 100 percent that the man does not do porn on the Net. So there is one person for the exception .

He is one of the slickest men there is. In our male club (that only males are allowed in) this is called "The Fake-Out". The trick is to pretend not to understand a computer at all, to the point of growling at it and kicking it with a boot every few days. This trick is made even more authentic by the way he makes you cringe, even shudder with anger at how awful he is typing anything.

Guys like this are true professionals, and the fact that their partners are so deep in it that they will defend them on the internet when it comes to such a thing as porn, is a trait that most men would kill for. While not the rarest of skills in the 'men watch porn' reality, it is near the top.

Bonus: if your man has you believing his skills are this bad AND he's able to cover his tracks with history/cookie deletions (and other ways that are secret but if I told women then it would be like a magician giving up all the secrets to magic, which means a bunch of vengeful magicians would show up and make the traitor disappear...ba-BOOM!), then this man is nearing his 3rd Degree Black Belt in Porn-Fu.

Oops, I mean that's cool, I guess not all men look at porn.

(But seriously, they do. You can believe they do not, but they do. I'm pretty confident saying this without ever meeting anyone's husband/boyfriend/partner. I've helped thousands of customers over fifteen years and have dealt with every single subset of personality. We like porn. This is just how it is. You never see a child refuse sugar after giving it to them the first time, do you?)



(Comrade Angry says: Please be for believing in humorous nature of reply.)

but there are limits. Oh god, I would hope, anyway.

Uh. I'll just sort of try to hold my tongue...because while I'm being humorous and even exaggerating a good amount, the people you would least expect to be utterly deviant and even a bit...disturbed...are the ones you'd least expect it from. I'm also not saying that every man who has some deviant thoughts or likes porn is 'that guy'.

Actually, I kind of am saying that.

I'll admit, sometimes it is like a train wreck or a car accident, and you just can't stop looking (two humans of the double-X chromosome and a drinking peripheral that holds liquid comes to mind) at it. But there's a limit. So you are right about that. But not right in the way you want to be right heh.

PS I like valerie and she's pretty much correct but she should be burned at the stake for giving up male secrets about us and roMANce. Someone has been talking...men...

(I'm sorry I had a thought in the middle of your Black Panther party)
(I'll leave now)
(men...write more roMANce)
(but you know...try to be a bit less misogynistic when you do)
(if you want women to read it anyway)
(though some women might like it? I'm not a woman so I can't really say)
(but srsly, I'm shutting up now)

 

[Betsy the Quilter]

My roofing partner does not look at internet pornography. He doesn't know how to turn on his computer for school or even remember how to read his own school email after a semester break. And watching him try to type an URL is like waterboarding myself because...you know...I can do it a whole lot faster. I can say 100 percent that the man does not do porn on the Net. So there is one person for the exception .

I didn't know that I was married to your roofing partner... LOL! My husband is such a Luddite.

Betsy

 

[dalya]

...
And generally, I think the reason that most men don't like romance novels is not because they don't like stories about falling in love, or because they don't like the anticipation leading up to the consummation, but because they recognize that the typical male romance hero is an utterly unrealistic fantasy--...

I thought it was because a significant portion of men don't read female authors or books about female protagonists. That's why "J.K." wrote about Harry.

Please note: I didn't say "all men."

 

[Ty Johnston]

He is one of the slickest men there is. In our male club (that only males are allowed in) this is called "The Fake-Out". The trick is to pretend not to understand a computer at all, to the point of growling at it and kicking it with a boot every few days.

Ever notice how it's always younger guys who are doing IT work? That's because they're not experienced/old enough to have caught on. Yeah, dad can take apart a 289-cubic-inch V8 engine with 210 horsepower on a '65 Mustang, then put it back together again, but he can't figure out how to check his e-mail on Yahoo? Yeah, suuuuurrre.

 

[dianasg]

Valerie really nailed it. For male romance, I thought of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope. (See: Natalie Portman in Garden State). The thing is, male romance films/books are usually not called "romances." They're called "films" or "books."

I thought it was because a significant portion of men don't read female authors or books about female protagonists. That's why "J.K." wrote about Harry.

Please note: I didn't say "all men."

This. (Though I don't think Jo Rowling was thinking that far ahead when she conceived Harry rather than Harriet.)

It's hard to say whether the whole "guys won't read books/watch movies about girls" thing is REALLY as pervasive as it seems. Publishers/the media are very quick to pander to men, to claim that women will watch stories about men, but men won't watch stories about women. As a result, most stories in mainstream media ARE about men, and thus the assumption is rarely tested. What stories are about women are highly stigmatized -- they are decidedly "for women." (Chick flicks, romance novels, etc.) If men consume this media, they'll get some flack.

So romance, for example, has become the domain of women: a place where women's fantasies can be acted out, written out -- which is a nice reprieve, because a lot of mainstream media (Chick flicks included, IMHO) has to do with male fantasy. Possibly, Billionaires are a fantasy because money=security. Being able to look to a man for security is a powerful cultural idea that goes back a long, long way. We women know it's a fantasy. The empowering thing is in being able to express that fantasy. Which is how I choose to look at Romance as a genre. It's also why I don't find the billionaire/rock star/Duke/Sheik trends at all annoying.

Ultimately, I think many guys wouldn't mind watching a film that features a female protagonist and her problems. In fact, I know many guys who don't mind it. I mean, we're all people. A problem is a problem. A goal is a goal. I dont think it's beyond the realm of possibility for people to be able to empathize with someone of a different gender. I wish the media at large would reflect this, and that there was more fluidity and overlap assumed (and ALLOWED) in the audience.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And generally, I think the reason that most men don't like romance novels is not because they don't like stories about falling in love, or because they don't like the anticipation leading up to the consummation, but because they recognize that the typical male romance hero is an utterly unrealistic fantasy--probably the kind of guy that they hate. And, even more importantly, they don't see themselves anywhere in the story. There's no one for them to identify with.

I absolutely love love stories. If you search my fanfic favorites, almost all of them are Romance. In fact, I'm way more into 'pure' romance than sextimes stories.

But the second thing you said is completely correct. I usually hate the male leads. Either they're the guy I imagine I'd be rejected for, or, as I've complained about earlier, utter creeps that make my skin crawl and my punching muscles twitch.

Also, to be completely brutal, a lot of mainstream romance, especially romantic comedies, aren't actually about developing the relationship for the couple, but setting up high drama around a love at first sight moment that would have usually been prevented if the couple actually cared about one another instead of themselves. I'm speaking specifically of the 'it was a misunderstanding, but I got so inexplicably angry that I wouldn't listen to the simple, obvious explanation' trope.

Give me a story about how two people meet and grow together with realistic ups and downs and characters who don't act like high school kids looking for... THE DRAMA!, and I will show you a big stack of my money.

Edit: And I don't know anyone who would ditch a book just because a woman wrote it. I feel that this is another one of those 'Catwoman and Electra failed, therefore no one wants to see female action leads' deals.