Guest Post: Beth Matthews

“Has the book world changed the idea of the perfect man? (in your opinion – how, why, effects on the romance genre etc)”

 

It’s a fairly well documented fact that culture influences the people who grow up in it, and then those people grow up to influence the culture and so on down through time. One of the great things about romance specifically is that the genre is founded on stories about women for women written (mostly) by women. That kind of thing can be a great force for discussion and, hopefully, cultural change for the better.

 

Obviously, if you read romances that were popular in the 60s versus romances written nowadays you’ll see the idea of the perfect man has changed. Or maybe it’s just diversified. Whereas in romances of old there was a sort of one size fits all for heroes: strong, take charge, usually rich. Nowadays readers have a greater variety in choice. They can still find heroes cast in the older, more dominating mold, but they can also find nurturing beta heroes if that’s their thing.

 

I, personally, don’t buy into the idea that women have unrealistic expectations for their real life men just because they read romance. I think reading romance might help you figure out what you enjoy in a man and what you might enjoy in bed. I don’t see a problem with that. If a fictional romance can help a woman articulate, even for herself, what she wants out of her own love life then that seems good to me.

 

That said, one of my goals for my own writing is to aim for realistic depictions of people and life. Which is why I decided to write a fairly non-traditional hero in my new book LOVE’S LAST CALL. The hero, Norm, is overly tall, skinny, he has a big nose. He’s also a total beta hero. But, even while writing a beta hero, I tried to dodge the clichés and make a real character. Norm has had girlfriends before; he’s had sex. He’s had good sex, even before he met the heroine.

 

Now I just have to hope that in this brave new world with all its various choices of hero “types” that enough readers will enjoy my idea of a “perfect man”: someone who’s not a perfect man but a good man.