I've enjoyed this series all along. At first, I was pretty much thrown off by what I saw as "Alien sexually harasses woman until she falls in love with him" but the series gets better. The possessive/jealous streak of Jeff continues to play a part in the storylines, but Kitty seems to provide a perfect foil for him. After meeting the author at World Fantasy a few years back, I decided to give the books another shot, and I'm glad I did
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I love Gini's writing, and she's a fun person to know, but I agree about your dominance & aggression points. In fact, I've actually had to put down quite a few books recently because of the fact that the male love interest emotionally abuses the female protagonist and she still jumps into bed with him.
The trend bothers me, a lot. I'm not prudish about the sex. I'm prudish about rewarding that kind of behavior because "the woman just can't resist that much dangerous hotness."
Just wanted to say I appreciate that while this stuff creeps you out, you never fall into slamming people who do like aggressively dominating fantasy figures or assuming that desire for that in a fluffy novel is the same as being brainwashed by THE MAN into wanting it in real life.
Thanks. It's a weird area for me. I know there are people who can read and appreciate the dominance fantasy with crystal clear understanding that this sort of behavior in real life would be a serious problem. But I also see it so often that it comes off less as a particular fantasy and more as a kind of prototypical model for how men are expected to behave, romantically. I do think it can normalize abusive behaviors, if that makes sense, and while seeing it in a fluffy novel isn't going to brainwash anyone, seeing it reinforced so often can be more problematic.
I don't think nobody should ever be allowed to write that kind of scene, or anything like that. I guess I just wish it wasn't so...dominant? Or that contextually, the stories showed more awareness of what they were and weren't presenting?
I'm having a hard time sorting this all out in the comments, so again, I hope this makes sense.
Definitely - I really wish it wasn't so dominant. Catering to certain fantasies is fine, but I think it's telling that people who want a dominant woman in their heterosexual romances very rarely get their fantasies fulfilled in fluffy fiction.
Still, I do think that for instance a lot of the feminist criticisms of Twilight sometimes slipped into 'these silly women with their silly girl books for girls, they don't know it's bad for them. They will confuse fantasy with reality and get into terrible relationships, stupid girly girls.' And honestly I'd hoped we'd moved past this Northanger Abbey bollocks.
I wonder if female authors write about men like that because the men in their books are safe. Sure, they have this bad boy vibe, but they're safe. Those men in their books are under control. It's also, in some ways, consensual. If the author doesn't like his behaviour, there's a handy delete button nearby. Also, the author knows the outcome. (Theoretically.) The woman is going to fall in love with him in the end, so if he jumps the gun, well, she was going to love him anyways. It could be a case of an author projecting knowledge onto a character who has no business knowing that. The problem is that the man might be limited to forcible kissing and such in a book, but in real life, there's no such barriers or easy control methods.
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The trend bothers me, a lot. I'm not prudish about the sex. I'm prudish about rewarding that kind of behavior because "the woman just can't resist that much dangerous hotness."
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I don't think nobody should ever be allowed to write that kind of scene, or anything like that. I guess I just wish it wasn't so...dominant? Or that contextually, the stories showed more awareness of what they were and weren't presenting?
I'm having a hard time sorting this all out in the comments, so again, I hope this makes sense.
Reply
Still, I do think that for instance a lot of the feminist criticisms of Twilight sometimes slipped into 'these silly women with their silly girl books for girls, they don't know it's bad for them. They will confuse fantasy with reality and get into terrible relationships, stupid girly girls.' And honestly I'd hoped we'd moved past this Northanger Abbey bollocks.
Reply
Also, the author knows the outcome. (Theoretically.) The woman is going to fall in love with him in the end, so if he jumps the gun, well, she was going to love him anyways. It could be a case of an author projecting knowledge onto a character who has no business knowing that. The problem is that the man might be limited to forcible kissing and such in a book, but in real life, there's no such barriers or easy control methods.
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