Sometimes when I go to Barnes & Noble or some similar bookstore I just wander the aisles, looking at the major subject sections. Almost invariably I am saddened: a great big section on Newage, a small section on science. Look in the “young adult” or childrens section and find a handful of science fiction books; but several bookcases full of fantasy and paranormal. More than once I’ve found *sizable* sections devoted specifically to “paranormal romance.” You know, gettin’ it on with vampires and ghosts and elves and such.
At the best of times, I don’t really *get* a lot of romance fiction. A lot of it seems to be “damsel in distress tries to capture and then change Bad Boy.” Having actually lived for some time in the real world, when that is tried in reality the virtually inevitable result is “damsel in distress winds up getting smacked around by the Bad Boy, because she can’t actually change him via any means shot of armed rebellion.” So when you replace the standard Bad Boy (judging by the cover art, he tends to be a shirtless Viking or a shirtless biker or a shirtless highlander; shirtlessness seems pretty much a prerequisite, along with flowing hair and a lack of a beer gut) with a supernatural entity whose sole purpose seems to be to rend humans limb from limb, my lack of understanding sorta shoots through the roof.
Rather than launch into a series of expletives on this topic I’ll let Foamy the Squirrel do it instead:
Foamy make a series of good points, but one I had not previously considered runs thus: Women want men to charge through the gates of Hell and fight off hordes of demons, to be dashing Princes with buckets of cash. Men want women to be a bit more stretchy. Which one is the more unrealistic?