Romance Today

My mom’s reaction when it was confirmed what I’m writing and an email I got on one of my author loops... well, it got me thinking about the romance genre as a whole--and erotic romance in particular--and how it’s perceived by those not in this industry (and, unfortunately, by a few people who are in this industry but are caught up in their own issues of what's "romance" and what's not).

First, I want to set the record straight. Romance authors don’t write “trashy novels”. We write the most popular fiction in the world. (Well, in the U.S., anyway. Sales statistics bear me out on this.)

Jenny Crusie, in one keynote speech she gave, said (and I paraphrase), “The stories we write are not real, but they are true.” (Take that, James Frey and Nasdijj!) What did she mean by this? Romances aren’t real because the characters and situations are fictional. But they are true because in them we explore basic human truths of life, love, and struggle. Romance novelists and readers simply choose to look at the world in a positive light, and so the books have happily ever afters at the end, or at the very least, the promise of an HEA.

Finally, life is hard. We have no guarantees of happiness. Even the founding fathers of the United States of America were wise enough to know that and so protected not our happiness, but our right to pursue happiness. And because our lives sometimes are so hard and emotionally draining/unsatisfying, I want my entertainment (be it books or movies) to have happy endings. (Can I tell you how incredibly irritated I was with City of Angels? I mean, here the angel gives up his immortality to be with the heroine, and then she dies?!?!? WTF is up with that?!?!?)

So. I do not write trash. Okay, Mom?

I write frickin’ good entertainment!

OMG, My Mother Knows!

And she wishes I was writing children's books.

This would be why I hadn't broken the news to her yet. I didn't want her to be disappointed in me. Even if I am almost 43 years old, she's still my mother.

And she wants me to write books for little kids.

Oy vay.

I haven't actually talked to her. This was relayed to me by my sister. I told Mom I was writing romances. She asked my sister, "Is she writing that stuff like your father reads?"

My sister: "Well, yeah, kind of." (She says to me, "I couldn't lie to her." Well, duh. I don't expect my sister to lie to our mother. But she could at least get it right. I so do not write what my dad reads.)

Yeah, don't get excited. My dad does not read romances. My dad reads male erotica (or is it porn?) like the Longarm books by Tabor Evans. There's quite a bit of sex in the books, but no romance. The sex is there for titillation only, as a tool for arousal.

I don't write erotica. I don't write porn.

I write erotic romance. Emphasis on the romance. R-o-m-a-n-c-e.

Even so, can you imagine me writing children's books?

Oy vay.


(Oh, and make sure you go over to Indulgence today and check out the free second installment of All's Fair.)

What Women Want To Hear

A couple of days ago I had a two-part blog about the differences between men and women. Let's move on to what kinds of things do women want to hear from their men in bed?

Women are verbal creatures at heart. While we might know our man loves us, we still want to hear those three words: "I love you." It's also why we read erotic romance and erotica and love men with foreign accents. According to Ask Men, we react the same way to these things as a man will when he sees a woman with large breasts (because men are visual creatures at heart).

If your man can paint a verbal picture, he can turn you on, and big time. Here are some tips that Ask Men gives on the best things to say once a man has a woman where he wants her:

"I want to make you feel good." A simple and effective way to relax her and reassure her that she made the right decision to go to bed with him.

Most men like a woman to be vocal during sex, because that way he knows when he's pleasing her. But sometimes women feel awkward or embarrassed about being so loud. A man saying, "I love the sounds you make when you orgasm" will help her relax and let go.

He should compliment her, but be sure he selects a body part she's proud of. She'll know if he's 'faking' it. He can say something like "I love how (hot) your (body part) is."

"I love the way you taste. I could stay down here for hours." When a man says this, it reassures his woman that he enjoys giving her oral sex and that there are no, um, nasty smells coming from that area. And the tip here: it's best to say this in a rough, exhausted tone of voice. (Service done well is service most appreciated!)

"That feels so good. I love it when you (insert action here)." The man should encourage his woman to touch him, and let her know what works for him. Or "You're so good at (insert action here)" works as well.

"Your skin is so soft and smooth." God knows we spend a lot of time shaving and smoothing stuff on our skin to keep it feeling silky. We appreciate it when our men acknowledge our efforts and that it's a turn-on for them.

"I've never felt this way before." Men and women like to feel special and unique, especially in a relationship. If a woman does something to her man in bed that has never been done quite so pleasurably before, he needs to tell her. But he shouldn't overdo it by adding something like "It's the best I've ever had." (That could detract from the whole making-her-feel-special thing, because this suggests she's just another in a long line of bed partners.)

The guys should choose their words wisely. Well-spoken words (even dirty talk) can heighten a woman's arousal. Poorly chosen words will break the mood and send him home without gettin' any.


P.S. I'll be taking the weekend off from this blog, but you'll get me twice on Monday. I'll be posting here, of course, and posting the second installment of All's Fair over at Indulgence. If you haven't read Jenna and Kate's stories, get over there now and read them. They're great!

Blogs, Blogs Everywhere

I am now on five blogs.

Oy.

Vay.

First, there's Reflections, my blog. Then there's Indulgence, my author group's blog. Then there's Torrid Temptations, the blog for Whiskey Creek Press Torrid, and NCP Authors from New Concepts Publishing and, finally, I'll be SExing at some point or another over at Silver Expressions, Liquid Silver Publishing's blog.

This means my surfing to other sites will become scarcer and scarcer. I just don't have the time... correction. I don't want to take the time away from my writing to be gallivanting all over the Internet reading all the wackiness that is other people's lives.

I'm a little overwhelmed. Especially at the thought of blogging over at SEx. The blogs there are funny and irreverent and smart. On my good days I, too, am funny, irreverent and smart. But I get intimidated easily. It's the Pisces in me, I guess. Or being the youngest child. The Peacemaker.

Ah, well. We shall see.

Oy.

Vay.

Do Women Prefer Masculine Faces?

In recent years, scientists have turned to the theory of evolution to explain why some faces are judged to be more attractive than others.

According to the laws of evolution, the attractiveness of an individual is directly related to his or her value as a mate. In other words, a "high-value" mate is one who best enhances your chances for successfully reproducing. In our evolutionary past, scientists claim, someone who noticed the cues to the value of a potential partner and thereby selected a high-value mate would leave behind more children, and those children would tend to inherit genes for attentiveness (i.e., they paid attention to who was the most handsome).

Thus attention to attractiveness is part of our evolutionary design.

What does good looks have to do with anything? Scientists believe that one link between good genes and attraction could be the shape of the masculine face.

Boys and girls, until puberty, have similarly shaped faces. At puberty, however, hormones kick in and masculinize or femininize the faces and produce distinctive faces of mature men and women. Testosterone provokes the growth of certain facial features--such as the jaw and cheekbones--so boys' faces grow more than girls'. Female faces remain relatively childlike. High levels of estrogen in growing girls prevents the growth of facial bones, and leads to increased thickness of lips and fatty deposits in the cheek area.

Theoretically, then, men with more 'masculine' faces should be more attractive, because there are certain evolutionary costs connected to developing such characteristics. It all comes back to the testosterone levels associated with the male face-shape. Testosterone decreases the effectiveness of the immune system, and so only healthy individuals with strong immune systems can afford to produce the hormones required to create masculine characteristics. (If a male doesn't have a strong immune system, his body would not release enough testosterone to give him a more masculine facial shape.)

The quality of our immune systems is linked to our genes. So it tracks that an attractive masculine face should reflect the attractiveness of underlying good immunity genes (and thereby somewhat guaranteeing a child of the union would be healthy).

There have also been some studies done of chimps and gorillas in correlation to this idea. Male primates' canine teeth generally are longer than females. Which makes sense, as their teeth would be used in fights for dominance and fighting for the right to mate. Longer teeth often reflect which males are dominant.

Scientists have found that as primate faces became broader, their canines were shorter. Longer-faced primates have longer canines. The study of chimps and gorillas found that there was a development of broader-faced males with shorter canines in chimpanzees (which evolutionists claim our are closest primate relative), suggesting a move toward attractiveness versus brute strength when females selected their mates. Broader faces with prominent cheekbones were picked preferentially by females.

This leads scientists to believe that we had the same "move" in our own evolutionary history (as evidenced by contemporary movie stars like Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen), where mate choice was more important than competition between males.

Hmm. You'd never know that by watching American football or Canadian hockey, now would ya?

Take a look. Are these faces attractive to you?


P.S. I'll be over at Fallen Angels Reviews tonight, along with the other authors from Whiskey Creek Press Torrid. 9 p.m. EST. Come over and chat with us!

Men And Women Are Different - Part 2

Yesterday I blogged about the different way men and women use eye contact and body movement. Today, we'll talk about the different ways they handle touch and space.

Women tend to associate touch with warmth and initiate types of touching that express support, affection and comfort. Women are touched more than men and are touched more gently than men. (You ever see two guys hug each other? They're pounding on each other's backs the whole time.)

Men, on the other hand, initiate touch toward females more, they're touched less often than women and more harshly than women (the pounding on the back I mentioned above), and many times use touch to assert power or express sexual interest.

As far as space (i.e., personal space), women tend to approach others closer and prefer side-to-side interaction. Men are more likely to invade others' personal space, especially women, and they prefer face-to-face conversation.

Interestingly, I picked up the January 31st edition of Woman's World today, and there was a short article by Barbara Smalley titled How to Talk So Men Will Listen. One of the things this article spoke to was this: men perceive face-to-face interaction as an act of aggression, which automatically provokes their fight or flight reaction (mostly the flight one). Now, while this would seem to contradict what was said above. But, as men are more likely to invade others' personal space (a sign of aggression), face-to-face would suggest aggressive behavior, too. If you don't want to immediately put a guy on the defensive, sit next to him instead of across from him. And, apparently, the average man can process up to 600 words per minute while the average woman speaks only about 125 to 150 words per minute. Since their brains compute words faster than we speak them, they have plenty of time for their minds to wander. So say what you've got to say and say it fast!

Hope these two days can help you, either with dealing with the men in your lives, or in writing about them in your books.

Men And Women Are Different...

... and, of course, we all knew that! But I found some information as to the different way we communicate and interact, and it was so fascinating I just had to share.

First, there's our body gestures (facial expressions, posture, etc.). Women tend to use facial expressions and body language that signal approachability and friendliness, but they tend to use less and more restrained gestures. Because of socialized rules that tell women we're supposed to be more expressive and non-confrontational, we tend to smile even when we're not happy. (It's polite.) We're more likely to be interrupted if/when we smile, even as we're attracted to those who smile more. And apparently women tilt their heads to the side more often. (Looking like a confused little puppy, perhaps?)

Men, on the other hand, use facial and body motions that indicate more reservation and control and use gestures more. They convey emotions less through smiling because of social norms that tell them they're to be emotionally neutral. They're more likely to interrupt people who are smiling. (Hmm. See the correlation? Women smile more and women get interrupted more by men.) Men's posture is more relaxed than women's and they nod their heads a lot (kinda like a bobble head.) :)

Let's move onto eye contact. Women rarely stare and engage in more eye contact while talking. This confused me a bit: they signal interest by maintaining eye contact, but tend to break eye contact more and are generally the first to avert their gaze upon the initial gaze. When eye contact isn't maintained with the other speaker, women are likely to be interrupted.

Men stare, perhaps to challenge power or status, and they signal interest by staring. They generally don't make as much eye contact as women do and will maintain eye contact until the other person averts his/her gaze. (Remember the old staring game? I'm a master--guess I've got some boy genes there somewhere.) :)

Tomorrow we'll talk about touch and space, and the different ways men and women use them.


P.S. Go over to Indulgence and check out Fire and Ice, the first installment of Kate's story. It's terrific!