I remember my wife often saying how exhausting it was for her to have to tell me what to do all the time. It’s why the sexiest thing a man can say to his partner is “I got this,” and then take care of whatever needs taken care of.
I always reasoned: “If you just tell me what you want me to do, I’ll gladly do it.”
But she didn’t want to be my mother. She wanted to be my partner, and she wanted me to apply all of my intelligence and learning capabilities to the logistics of managing our lives and household.
She wanted me to figure out all of the things that need done, and devise my own method of task management.
I wish I could remember what seemed so unreasonable to me about that at the time.
It’s not just about equal division of labor. It’s also about, “this thing is important to her. If he ignores it, he’s saying that what she wants is irrelevant to him.”
And that’s a guy saying, “I’m only spending time with you because it’s pleasant for me.” He’s already decided what’s “really” important, and her input is not welcome.
If he won’t do the dishes and laundry, he’s looking for fun, not a partnership. And his “leftist” ideals will be the same–something he studies because it’s interesting to him; a form of activism that he thinks will bring him a better life. If he can’t do household tasks that matter to a person he loves, he sure as hell can’t support policies that help people whose struggles he doesn’t even acknowledge are real.
It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”
Like.
No?
Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.
Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)
Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.
Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.
But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?
Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.
It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).
“women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected to love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty.”
THANK YOU.
This is so important.
It’s okay for women to enjoy sex.
It’s okay for women to have good partners.
It’s okay to have healthy, female initiated sex in your story. Or female denied sex.
It’s okay to be the main character in a story.
It’s okay for a character to have traits you have.
It’s okay for a female character to be a main character and share traits/kinks/hobbies/interests with you.
It’s okay for you to write a story about your character finding a good relationship.
It’s okay for you to write about your character being bad-fucking-ass.
It’s okay for your character to be well liked.
I’m so tired of this “Mary Sue” culture. A main character based off you is not inherently bad. You as a female human are not bad. You are dynamic and interesting and evolving and complex and the character of you that you write is bound to be 110% better than the male written you, so write her please.
It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”
Like.
No?
Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.
Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)
Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.
Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.
But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?
Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.
It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).
“women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected to love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty.”
THANK YOU.
This is so important.
It’s okay for women to enjoy sex.
It’s okay for women to have good partners.
It’s okay to have healthy, female initiated sex in your story. Or female denied sex.
It’s okay to be the main character in a story.
It’s okay for a character to have traits you have.
It’s okay for a female character to be a main character and share traits/kinks/hobbies/interests with you.
It’s okay for you to write a story about your character finding a good relationship.
It’s okay for you to write about your character being bad-fucking-ass.
It’s okay for your character to be well liked.
I’m so tired of this “Mary Sue” culture. A main character based off you is not inherently bad. You as a female human are not bad. You are dynamic and interesting and evolving and complex and the character of you that you write is bound to be 110% better than the male written you, so write her please.
Charts from OKCupid, showing how straight women and men rate each other based on ages. For women, the men they find most attractive are roughly their own age. For men, the women they find most attractive are roughly the same age - 20 to 23 - regardless of the age of the man. (538)
Good fucking Christ.
I used this data in a project at school to talk about how pornography consumption is impacting average everyday males we interact with online and in person. Teen categories and scenarios are the top desired porn titles and a female porn performer is considered “past her prime” by 24.
To the people who are claiming this has something to do with fertility:
Men’s reproductive ability decreases with age just like women. Sperm become less potent and less mobile and the quality decreases as a man ages. And women’s bodies are at their peak fertility between 23-31, so any claim that this has only to do with biology is pure bullshit. This is heavily culturally influenced.
Tbh they’d probably say 17-19 if they could get away with it. They’re just pedos in disguise
They absolutely would say teenagers are the ‘peak of female fertility’ and that men being attracted to them is ‘completely natural’.
Don’t fucking buy it. Women on average are not their most fertile until their late twenties to early thirties. These men just wanna rape girls. Cull them.
I used to think environmental feminism was the whitest most Birkenstock organic oatmeal exclusive “goofy white feminist” thing ever. Then one day my professor told me about how it’s a reproductive justice issue that like ¼ Black kids in a neighborhood in the south Bronx have asthma because there’s a giant power plant / waste center thing by where they live or something. And the environmental standards are so low that it affects their health and livelihood etc. and it literally changed my entire life lol. then I thought about the garment industry and environmental waste from that and how it affects those making the clothes. and I thought about who those creative garment workers are!!!!!!!!! And why their work is undervalued and the implications etc. and how this is actually in every facet of my life and not just like white woman ignoring the lives and issues of PoC to pick up bottles on the beach. Like this is serious. It’s just life changing really to realize how shallow and goofy I was being avoiding these issues.
Or rather, not connecting them properly to have a comprehensive understanding of how injustices relevant to me are connected to the environment and preservation of the integrity of these environmental systems?
Also men have a vested interest in keeping white women and women of colour separated.
So “goofy white feminists” never share ideas with “angry black women”.
They do this with ages too. Old saggy bitter hags (!) must be kept away from bright young starlets.
I’ve started looking into everything I once disregarded because I thought I didn’t like that demographic of women. And yeah, often I still don’t like some of the women, but I spent years battling internalised misogyny (like many masculine women I guess) and I’m not writing off women as tofu-knitting crusties or evil old witches or middle class yoga bunnies without hearing what they have to say, especially just because some man told me they weren’t worth listening to.
It’s saddening to realise how men have achieved the division of women of different backgrounds and how many of us have not listened to each other because of it. It’s sad to see how much these men made us all hate ourselves and others.
If a man tells you to disregard the writing or speech of a woman, don’t. He has an agenda for censoring her.
