Biceps Like Bowling Balls
I was posting links to my ebooks on Facebook last night and happened upon a product description for one of the latest romance porns that proposed to entice readers with a description of the swooningly gorgeous hero who, even in jeans and a T, boasted biceps like bowling balls. These body parts, along with other masculine body parts (I can only assume) and a gorgeously chiseled face and eye-popping eye color and hair, lots of hair but only on his scalp, not on his chest, will conspire to lure the heroine into his bed.
Gentlemen, how are your biceps doing today? Are they like bowling balls? Have they ever been like bowling balls? And if yes, how on earth did you train to get them that way?
Ouch. That’s got to hurt.
Ladies, do biceps like bowling balls devastate you, dazzle you, cause you to fall desperately in love? How about an arrogant, controlling asshole who is somehow a billionaire at the age of twenty-eight? Would you submit to some guy showing up at your hardware store gig, buying duct tape and rope and chains, smirking that this is what he’s going to tie you up with? Would you do it if he were ugly? How about bald? Fat? How about poor?
Or would you call the police and get a restraining order?
But it’s okay because you’re for some reason madly in love with him. He’s gorgeous, fabulously rich, and has biceps like bowling balls.
I know, I know. It’s only the latest romance fantasy in the plague of abusive, obsessive relationship stories that have descended and gnawed upon our mass consciousness like Biblical locusts. Not to mention upon the publishing business, which is ever desperately seeking out what will sell in a tough market.
It all gets down to dollars and cents. Millions of dollars and cents.
No, I’m not jealous of these wildly successful books that sell millions in two months’ time, so please don’t hassle me about that. I am in the publishing business. I follow the trends. I look up the books on Amazon and read the first pages to see what it’s all about. I sincerely care about what readers want. I also know when the Big Media decides to push something, it usually sells. At least for a while.
I’m curious. What’s it all about? What is speaking to the readers?
I will tell you right now I am not a romance fan, reader, or writer. I write science fiction and fantasy because I love ideas and imagination. I love character and relationships and some romance and even hot romance in science fiction and fantasy and strive to put all that good stuff in my own work.
But body parts are not the focus.
A while ago, I reread the classic romance Gone With The Wind. Scarlett O’Hara is not gorgeous. Rhett Butler is really not gorgeous. They pretty much hate each other and love other people, wind up sleeping with each other anyway, and hate each other even more. It has always puzzled me why this was called a “romance.” It is the great-grandmother of all abusive relationship books.
Oh, now I get it. That’s romance.
But what great writing. And what a historical document about a tumultuous period in American history. And yes, the author captures in detail how African-Americans spoke at the time. It’s history. You don’t revise history, you record it as accurately as you can.
The other day I was loading groceries in the trunk of my car and my cart started rolling across the incline of the lot while my back was turned. A pudgy, frumpy, balding guy sprinted across the lot, caught my cart, and rolled it back to me. When I went to thank him, I noticed the blonde beauty standing beside his car, beaming at him with love shining in her eyes.
Call me psychic, but I got the impression they weren’t married to each other, that maybe they were having an affair, and the reason the beauty loved this guy was because he was gallant. Considerate. Caring.
That’s the word I want. Gallant. Not domineering, not dominating, but strong in a way that’s caring and considerate.
That guy didn’t have biceps like bowling balls.
A while ago, I attended a vintage cartoon festival. Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop, Pop-Eye the Sailor Man. Those old cartoons are so primitive compared to our modern fare but they possess a raw honesty and genius delightful to behold. Pop-Eye isn’t gorgeous, he’s very ugly. And he isn’t rich, he’s a sailor, an indentured servant in those days. But when he pops open a can of spinach and wolfs it down, man, does he get biceps like bowling balls.
Visit me sometime at http://www.lisamason.com.
