#fucking SHREDDED. total vanity 8-pack

[sabraeal]

would you be willing to elaborate on your tag about Tower of Dawn where you said SJM has a weird hangup about maleness? Because I think I agree but I've been having trouble putting my thoughts on it in order and I'd be very interested in hearing what you think in more detail

I know i specifically mention SJM because I was talking about Tower of Dawn, but quite honestly this is sort of a problem across a lot of the really popular romantasy titles (and lbh, probably originated due to a lot of mainstream romance these authors read over time), and has even started to extend it's spindly fingers into fandom, but there's this specific focus on MALENESS as a monolith. That someone can have a distinct maleness about them. That they can smell of sandalwood and male. That maleness requires having an eight pack and broad shoulders and the BO of a god and also there's some growling too? That a man can crush you in his large hands but that he doesn't because he's restraining his innate maleness -- read: violence-- to keep from harming you.

Which I mean, is a type. It's a kink! It's a fine flavor of romance that is perfectly enjoyable...except when it becomes the ONLY kind of ML. You can't be a ML *without* and eight pack now. Oh you might have been a lean, bookish side character in book one, but you got a love interest in the sequel, and now your veritable Man Paws break all the bindings you hold dear!

And I think that's where the real problem is-- not even that there's a real lack of body diversity in MLs in romantasy/romance, but that even when a previously NOT alpha male side character gets to have his own romance, he must BECOME that physical type. He has to suddenly become possessive and say all the things that sort of ML always says. As if there can't be a love story if the ML doesn't look or act like this. As if there is only a single type of maleness that could possibly be attractive, and it has to be founded in violence and possessiveness and domination.

There's nothing wrong with that as a preference-- whether to read or to write. And I think it's also normal in romance to emphasize the difference between partners' bodies-- if you're attracted to someone, you're gonna notice their large hands, or maybe that they only come up to your shoulder, or maybe that their skin color is a few shade off from yours or more, and be like hehehehehe dat's nice :3. But there's such a focus on describing the dorito body shape, or how ML's sweat catches on his super defined abs, or how his grip is so tight it bruises, or how he lets out his animal howling during sex...that it's sort of become a thing that's default, rather than defined by character.

I think we get real down on FL leads being samey, or having perfect bodies, or not being allowed to have more than the barest bit of personality-- especially when it's in media aimed at men. But we've kind of found our own way to reduce ML down to a single archetype, I think there's a real fear in romance about making flaws that aren't about the inches of his enemy's blood this guys stands in.