Big Beautiful Men?

Look, Lisabea! A post!

Mrs. Giggles today has a post about some romance epub which is requesting stories featuring big, beautiful men.

Excuse me while I giggle for just a second at that one.

I can see someone writing slightly huskier guys, but given that nobody is writing romances about women my size even when they’re writing rubenesque heroines, I’m not thinking this is a trend that will be embraced. (All I’ll say about my weight is that I *wish* I were a size 14, because then I could buy cute clothes without having to sacrifice my soul to get them.)

Also, given the already present need of some epublishers to start pandering (that’s the only explanation I can see for the presence of all the older woman/younger men books coming out of EC), I just don’t think most readers are going to want that kind of realism in our heroes. If our fantasies run toward having some hard-bodied stud adore us and think we are the sexiest thing since sliced bread, even though we are really 45, overweight, and developing more grey hairs than non-grey ones, why would we want to read about some short, pudgy, balding guy? Even I, who would like to think of myself as… not a shallow person at all… would probably raise an eyebrow there, even though I am not in the older woman demographic of reader.

So no, I don’t think we’re going to see a trend in big, beautiful men, because there’s not really enough of a fantasy in it for the stereotypical romance reader. Or, you know, for me. But then, my fantasy man is any guy who is strong-minded enough that he isn’t threatened by me when I’m in opinionated bitch mode. Half the time the men I read about don’t strike me as being the sort that could deal very well with women who, y’know, think. Which is why my fave heroes are the smart asses. I could take or leave the body type, as long as I loved the mind inside said body. But then, I could just be weird.