Sarah's been taking a close look at 'many variations on the definition of popular romance fiction' and she argues that male/male romances offer the reader a situation with 'double the power':
is the feminine power we find in romances as readers (and I assume as writers) diminished because there is no heroine?I'm still puzzling over this. Are heroines not vanquished by love? And is Sarah thinking of the power of love as somehow essentially feminine?
I argue that the power is in fact increased. The heroine “wins” in romance precisely because the hero learns to accept the necessity of love as a governing force in his life. The heroine’s triumph is located in teaching the hero to love. So when two men have to learn that, without the help of a woman, that’s double the power. The man and all he represents is vanquished by love – twice!
Please come and join in the discussion over at Romancing the Blog!
The picture is Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, from Wikipedia. Venus is, of course, the goddess of love.
The post was getting really long as it was. Including all the "except for" and "of course, this generalizes" would have made it unwieldy for RTB. Maybe I'll elaborate here. In my spare time.
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