by Maya Rodale
Indeed, it’s that ever-building sexual tension that makes the sex scenes so damn good, Sometimes it takes a few hundred pages to build up to the breaking point. The tension doesn’t just come from beating hearts, breathless heroines, or blood flow—it’s more than just physical. It’s emotional.
“These BDSM stories tend to explore at a deeper emotional level the headspace of characters,” says Jane Litte. “The idea is that it’s an emotion based story, not a physically based one. Even though they’re having sex repeatedly, it’s as much about the emotional release as it is about the physical.”
This applies to almost any romance novel and its sex scenes. Romances novels are predominantly written from both the hero and heroine’s point of view, so we know what everyone is thinking and feeling, creating a rich, immersive experience. Talk about feeling all the feelings.
And this union of the emotional and sexual is another way that romance novels are set apart from other representations of sexuality. It’s not about any one person getting off, but two people coming together (literally and figuratively, wink).
THE REAL APPEAL OF THE ALPHA
THE ENDURING ATTRACTION OF A TROUBLING TROPE
On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree in Isla Vista, California. He was a mentally unstable and enraged 22-year-old virgin who had never been kissed. Much of his rage was directed at the women who never found him attractive and the men who got the girls, in spite of having less money and crappier cars. In his manifesto, he writes, “You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one. The true alpha male.”
I shuddered when I read this because I thought of the thousands of romance novels with alpha male heroes written, read, and loved by millions of women. Even those who don’t read romances often get the gist of the type of hero they so often portray: the duke, the sheik, the billionaire, the one who has it all and takes the girl, too. After all, Fabio isn’t exactly posing gently with those cover girls.
Of course the term alpha isn’t confined to just romances; it’s a term to describe the individual in a community (not confined to humans) with the highest rank. But ever since Alan Boon of Mills & Boon decided that romances should adhere to “nature’s law,” which is the rule of the Alpha Man, who is “strong, brave, mentally and physically tough, intelligent, tall and dark,” the romance genre has celebrated, romanticized, and even fetishized the idea of the alpha male hero.
Boon has long argued that “all women gravitate toward this type of man, and wimpish heroes are not successful,” [111] and book sales have proven him right. Unfortunately, science has disproven Boons’ interpretation of evolutionary biology and the pervasive view that women are most interested in a man’s material assets and men are interested in a woman’s physical assets. “We have systematically destroyed that,” says Eli Finkel, a professor of Social Psychology at Northwestern University, on a panel on the science of history of love at the popular romance conference in Washington, D.C.
In fact, Finkel tells us that science has confirmed the utterly unsurprising truth that “everybody likes people who are hot rather than people who are ugly. And everybody prefers people who have some amount of ambition and earning potential.”
Many still buy into the outdated interpretation of men and women’s sexual dynamics featuring the aggressive male and the coy female, and it leads to some confounding questions. Do women romanticize the patriarchy and get off on submission? Are we shallow creatures who care only for men with status, wealth, and power—never mind how they treat women?
“Why is it that romance readers can tolerate any number of crazed behaviors from a romance hero, whereas if a real-life dude did one-tenth of a hero’s dastardly deeds, not the least of which is raping the heroine, she’d be calling 911 faster than you can say ‘restraining order’?”[112] asks Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan in their book Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches Guide to Romance Novels.
This is the point where many sigh, throw up their hands, and say “it’s just fiction!” But not always. In real life, women are at greatest risk of harm and abuse from the men in their personal lives. Or in the case of Elliot Rodger, this notion of what a man should be and what women should want can lead to deranged and deadly behavior.
Alpha hero vs alphHole
He’s very driven, controlling, arrogant—scary, but very charismatic. I can understand the fascination.
—50 Shades of Grey by E. L. James
First, a distinction must be made between an alpha hero and alphHole. The blog Heroes and Heartbreakers provides some concise definitions:
Alpha hero: A dominant, aggressive, hyper-masculine hero.
AlphHole: A critical term for an Alpha Male hero whose aggressive, forceful behavior crosses the line from romantic to abusive. This can be a contentious issue in the romance community as one reader’s “protective” can be another reader’s “controlling.” Often the line comes down to personal taste.[113]
Where a particular hero falls on the spectrum depends, in large part, on the skills of the writer. Is this domineering hero paired with a woman who stands up to him or Miss Doormat who allows him to go too far? How much secret pain from a tortured past does he possess to justify his behavior? Can the author write him as a conflicted human with motivation or is he a one-dimensional character “showing” his alpha-ness by acting like an asshole and displaying, in the words of one reader, “way too much financial and physical clout”?
Readers are attuned to the shades of gray between different types of heroes. Responses to hero preferences were totally mixed in my survey: 21 percent love alpha heroes, 11 percent love beta heroes (simply defined as not alpha), 34 percent say it doesn’t matter if it’s written by a favorite author, and 32 percent replied that it all depends on their mood.
The popular perception says that women want the worst of the alphHole: the arrogance, the controlling behavior, the raping, the lack of emotional availability. But these are the qualities readers deplore in these heroes. Even those who love alphas often included comments like “but he can’t be TOO alpha.” What is sexy about a well-written alpha is his confidence, the way he stands up in disasters big and small, and the way he knows how to please a woman even if she doesn’t know it herself. Yet.
The alpha hero’s appeal endures. In the past few years, he’s been toned down, certainly (the alpha hero: now with less rape and kidnapping!). Even though there are a lot of unmentionables in a twist over this kind of guy, here’s why we love them.
The alpha hero nurtures a woman in a world that doesn’t
The feeling of relinquishing responsibility to someone else, letting him take control, was a relief beyond words.
—Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas
In 50 Shades of Grey, Christian one-ups every man ever when it comes to taking Ana on a dinner date. He reserves a private room, orders her entrée and wine, and insists that she partake (“Eat, Anastasia.”). Of course he arranged for her transportation, too. In contrast, I once had a job taking reservations for some fancy New York City restaurants and I can’t tell you how many guys called up at the last minute, begging for a reservation, having forgotten their anniversary or their wife’s birthday. Not to mention picking the right bottle of wine and flying her home in a helicopter to beat the traffic.
Alpha behavior can sometimes go too far with “forced comfort” or creepy, controlling behavior. But when done right, it’s also kind of...nurturing. Nurturing on steroids, to be sure, but this is fiction. The alpha appeals to “the fantasy of being taken care of,” writes a reader named Beth. “They allow the woman to stop making decisions, to be taken care of,” another reader points out. Readers repeatedly described the appeal of the alpha hero as being the way he tends to the comfort of the heroine.
Chances are, the women reading these books are wives, mothers, and professionals. She is taking care of parents, kids, partners, and colleagues; juggling work, dry cleaning, soccer practice, getting dinner on the table; and planning a date n
ight and finding a babysitter. She’s been making decisions all freaking day. (For example, women make 85 percent of purchasing decisions[114] and that’s just one segment.) No wonder, when this super woman finally gets to sit down, put her feet up, and relax into a story, she wants to read about a man who asks her out, plans the dates, calls when he says he will, and makes the first move. There is a definite appeal to a man who just takes care of everything for the heroine, right down to her orgasms, as bestselling and beloved romance novelist Lisa Kleypas famously pointed out. [115]
For the few hours that she is reading a romance with a filthy rich alpha hero, a woman is swept into a world where she is free from her day-to-day responsibilities and having to think of everything and figuring it all out on her own. She doesn’t have to initiate sex with a guy glued to the TV because the alpha seduces her. She doesn’t have to solve every problem on her own, because the alpha steps up to lend a hand. The alpha, when done right, is a true partner who helps her shoulder the burdens, but let’s her be who she is.
Romancing the patriarchy
Another interpretation of romance novels with alpha heroes is that they are the patriarchy versus feminism writ small. The hero is the embodiment of the patriarchy and the heroine is the embodiment of feminism and these two must figure out how to bring out the best in each other and find common ground in order to live happily ever after.
He will be big and strong, in control of everything, with a low opinion of a woman’s abilities, and he’ll “discount the opinions and emotions of females” in the words of one reader. She will have to stand up to that, page after page, until he finally sees her, not as nothing or even as an adversary but as a partner. Speaking of the romances of the 1970s and 1980s, bestselling contemporary author Susan Elizabeth Phillips says “The heroes in these books had all the money, all the power — the heroines none. Yet what happened? She always won. Her courage, brains, and determination trumped the poor hero’s macho brawn every time.”[116]
This is not unlike a woman’s real life: Generations of women grew up being told a lady does not or girls can’t. Only the past few generations of girls grew up being told they could do and be whatever they wanted—but that doesn’t mean the world is set up to accommodate that. Numerous studies document how women still face double standards, particularly in the workplace or with regard to her level of sexual experience. A man is seen as a boss, while a woman is seen as bossy. A man is a player, a woman is a slut.
But in a romance novel, oh, the heroine doesn’t just make him see her point...she makes him believe in her as a person and she does this without changing herself to be more like a man. She must become a stronger version of herself to start affecting a change. “It starts off with the female being really subjugated and because she has emotional control over the situation, she becomes the powerful one and the one that is given love and is given happiness in the directive,” Maddie Caldwell, the romance book club organizer, explains.
It’s the battle of the sexes played out between one man and one woman. And in the end, they both win by adopting traits from the other.
A strong hero allows for a strong heroine
Chloe no longer had any fears of being controlled and Chase no longer held back to make sure he didn’t push her too far. All that remained was the sweet ecstasy of trust.
And pure love.
—The Look of Love by Bella Andre
What can be understood as controlling or domineering in one alpha can be interpreted as confident or decisive in another. Readers found alpha heroes appealing because they’re “strong and dependable” (as opposed to those guys who never call back).
But a strong hero also allows for a strong heroine. “I enjoy well-done alpha heroes when paired with heroines who won't be steamrolled,” one reader writes. And others echoed those sentiments, writing, “I feel like they can easily overwhelm less-confident heroines.” The hero has to be “someone who has enough strength to let the heroine still be herself and do her own thing, manage her own problems, but able to back her up when needed,” writes another reader Connie. I’m sure it’s true in reverse, too.
When writing about heroines, no one liked the doormat. But the downside of being a strong heroine or real life woman is that the bar is set high for prospective partners. Much as romances may serve as an escape, our taste in fiction can give a clue about what is going in the real world. Is it any coincidence that there was a boom in billionaire hero books during the great recession? Hanna Rosin, in her book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women, examines how major social shifts are changing the dynamic between men and women—and how often women are getting ahead while men lag behind. As one group of women improve their lot, “they raise the bar for what they want out of marriage...But the men of their class are failing to meet their standards.”
If women turn to romance novels for escape—and a vast majority of them do—no wonder they go for stories of strong, dependable men who are great lovers and partners. Who, you know, meet their standards.
Who said an alpha always has to have a penis?
The alpha character does not have to be male. If we remove penises and gender stereotypes and implications, then what does the alpha character stand for?
Cindy Rizzo, an author of lesbian romances, points out that some lesbian romance “mimics” heterosexual gender roles. “You have the more tough character and the softer character,” she says. “Even the softer character, who in straight romance is often the woman, ends up incredibly smart and incredibly clever. In the end, she is the one who steers the ship.”
Similarly, when speaking on a panel at the popular romance conference in Washington, D.C., Len Barot (known as Radclyffe, when writing lesbian fiction) points out: “In gay romance, you have a hero and heroine but they happen to be of the same sex. What are the archetypes? They like to see warrior types, those who sacrifice themselves for others.” They still like to see an alpha hero. Just as it turns out that we all want someone attractive, confident, and ambitious, it may also be true that many of us desire someone who will be a protector, who will put group interests above their personal interests, or who will simply be a more experienced guide in a relationship, whether sexually or emotionally.
This suggests that “alpha-ness” isn’t purely a male phenomenon; women can be alpha, too. It all depends on the character and the context of the relationship. We may have just gotten stuck in a rut of assuming that in romance, alpha = penis person because once upon a time Mills & Boon said so.
Many interpretations of alpha heroes often assume that the reader identifies with the heroine and forgets that the reader often is privy to the point of view of the hero as well. Early romance novels were written almost exclusively in the female POV, though it’s far more balanced now. In her essay The Androgynous Reader, from the collection Dangerous Men, Adventurous Women, Laura Kinsale points out that “authors were actually prevented from using the male viewpoint by their publishers, who clearly operate solidly within the idea that the reader always identifies with the heroine.”[117]
But what if she doesn’t?
In another essay from the same collection, The Androgynous Writer: Another Point of View, Linda Barlow writes:
If the heroine’s primary role in the myth serves to encourage us to cope with our fears, the hero’s is to provide us with the means of facing and accepting the angry, aggressive, sexually charged components of our personality that we have been taught to associate with masculinity. If romances are a space for women to explore all their thoughts, feelings, why wouldn’t they draw from all the characters’ experiences that are portrayed in the book?[118]
Similarly, Kinsale writes:
I think that, as she identifies with a hero, a woman can become what she takes joy in, can realize the maleness in herself, can experience the sensation of living inside a body suffused with masculine power and grace...can explore anger and ruthlessness and passion and pride and honor and gentleness and vulnerability: yes, ma’am, all those
old romantic clichés. In short, she can be a man.[119]
Now just imagine how that woman engages with the world after that experience. By having the experience of tapping into anger, feeling physically powerful, and being sexually experienced, a female reader brings a new strength and awareness to her everyday interactions and experiences. She knows what it’s like to be angry and to express it, rather than to cry in the bathroom. She learns what it feels like to take charge of a situation, to make the first move, or to have freedom to move around the world safely.
Romance novels, in a large part, are about women discovering their own strength and power. Some do this by identifying with a heroine who is shown the ropes from an alpha character; others do this perhaps by identifying with the alpha character, feeling his feelings, seeing the world from his point of view, and tapping into all those “masculine” qualities women aren’t supposed to possess.
* * *
Kinsale points out that the courtship in a romance isn’t just between two characters, but between different facets of the reader. “That is why romance readers are not, and never have been, intimidated by...the ‘retrograde, old-fashioned, macho, hard-edged man’—because the alpha male hero is themselves.”[120]
Though popular wisdom would have us believe that all romance novels still feature rapey alphHole heroes, that is a massive oversimplification. And yet, the truth is probably even more simple: Women want a true partner. And most guys probably do, too.
BRA BURNERS AND BODICE RIPPERS
WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?
I don’t want to have to earn love by giving up my ability to make decisions that determine how I live.