My grandmother had a full closet stacked full of paperback "heartthrob" books, as my mother called them, when we cleaned out her condo after her death. I know the Romance genre is one of the largest in publishing, but that has long been my association with these books. As a young teen is the last time I can remember reading them, sneaking the ones with the most heated descriptions of human desire and sexuality out of the public library and hiding them away in my room as a guilty pleasure. Something akin to my brother's secret stash of gay porn in his desk, perhaps.
I have already written previously about my emotionally chaotic childhood and struggle toward a healthier romantic and sexual identity, so I will not be revisiting those themes here. Instead, in this post, I want to write about the reasons why I don't find it necessary to read about romance anymore, and explore some of my real life experiences as the reasons. Particulalry since I have stated that I want to see fiction portraying more healthy relationships between adult women, I can certainly contribute examples to inspire writers to explore these directions.
My romantic moments have not all been with women. However, I have long participated with an online forum discussion for women about romance and sexuality choices and considerations of attraction between both genders. This began with a lot of dispelling the myth married women seemed to carry and fantasize that women were "better" lovers or partners. I have dated men and women, and I have had good and bad kisses from men and women. I have good and bad dates with both men and women. I have dated a LOT of people, so while I certainly claim to be no expert on human sexuality, I personally have a large data sample set from my own experience to draw real life lessons rather than hypothetical conjecture.
Speaking of stereotype and conjecture, I can also say personally I have had many romantic moments with Germans, rather than French or Italian people, as another contrast to stereotype. One first date I describe for people, which sounds like a scene out of a romance movie, happened in Germany, not Paris, where I shared a moment of deep emotional intimacy with a German man being vulnerable with me, followed by him grabbing the collar of my coat to pull me into a kiss while standing on the tram platform in the rain. Because if you believed every fantasy you read or saw on film, or stereotype, they would create an idea that German men are unemotional, directly causing that moment in time, in my life, to be a statistical impossibility.
As an adult woman dating both men and women, I can contribute those experiences to the writing community to further the discussion. Perhaps, watching the younger generation of 20 year olds with their vastly different worldview of inclusion, these are the kinds of experiences we can provide as they look ahead and consider their journey. Which we can also contribute to the many frustrated housewives, whether in the US, Germany, or the UK, wondering if there is more to life than their heterosexual marriages.
Over the years of discussing these topics in the online forum, collective experiences and questions of many people came together to create definite trends and recognition of shared experiences: Women in long term partnerships with men trying to navigate those conversations about what attraction to women meant for them. Single women trying to navigate crushes on other women, the typical frustration over mixed messages of straight women. What other myths exist? Turning straight women gay? Forced definitions from other women about what same gender attraction should mean or how it should be defined? That bisexuality did not exist, and the many stereotypes in both straight and queer communities about what bisexuality means.
Whether women on this journey of self-discovery ultimately found themselves to be further toward the homosexual end of the spectrum than toward the center, we did recognize shared experiences that there were different rhythms in dating men versus women. These are the kinds of representation in adult sapphic literature that can be explored. In my experience, as well as those who have agreed with me, many women are used to being pursued, and if there is attraction between two women, the gauntlet of whether that progresses or not is equally as confusing as a man and women unable to recognize or sending mixed messages about attraction. Personally, I have found myself absolutely behaving like an overeager teenage boy toward women I have met. How many women would be willing to face the discomfort of feeling like they are going through puberty again at the age of 30?
I have seen others, and saw a description of a trans woman saying something similar, discuss the energy and self-expression that is different when dating a man versus dating a woman. This is something I find myself exploring - I explore some of these ideas in my current book. How my demeanor and attitude shift with a partner who is a man versus a partner who is a woman. If I feel myself falling into a more typically feminine role. If I find myself wanting and enjoying the feeling of femininity on the receiving end of masculine attention. If I date a woman, how it brings out different aspects of my personality or attitudes.
One trend which is less of a stereotype is the contrast in how the dating relationship tends to develop between women versus a man and a woman. If our goal to help adults have healthy relationships and attachment styles, this is something we should be discussing. The joke that lesbians bring a Uhaul to a second date, are prone to couple identity "absorption," all harken to the way two women can feel and develop a quick sense of heightened emotional intensity. I met a woman recently that reminded me of how intensely emotionally connected I felt quickly toward her, as well as a previous girlfriend. It caused me to disregard healthy boundaries and needs and wants in a previous relationship. If my relationship goals are healthy relationship boundaries, with either gender, the inability to put those first due to emotional currents sweeping me into a relationship would be counterproductive.
Adult fiction gives us so many different romantic and relationship combinations to explore these kinds of dynamics between partner pairings of any gender. These topics are things I would find much more interesting to explore than the question of whether someone is self aware about which gender they find attractive, or where they find themselves on the Kinsey Scale. It is the conversation that we actually see happening in Real Life, as well. Jillian Michaels has a family with her wife, but was a private person about her personal life. She also said she never "came out" as a lesbian, because her relationship goals were to find her person and have a healthy relationship. She found that happened to be when she met this woman, but over time, and figuring out what that relationship was for the two of them. MTV had a remake of a singles show with sexually fluid singles, who just saw options for dating partners, rather than the genders of those partners. Why does it feel like the literary and publishing community is so far behind this conversation that these are not the characters we see represented in adult fiction?
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