Friday, November 6, 2015

Word from the Herd-- Acceptable Violence: Heroine's who strike their heroes...


Something I've noticed lately has really started to bother me and I wanted to talk about it today.

I think we'd all pretty much agree that if a hero hit/slapped/physically struck a woman he would no longer be considered a hero. That's just not acceptable, right?

But a heroine slapping/physically striking or trying to knee a hero in the balls while arguing? Totally okay. No one bats an eye. Some would cheer her on because he totally deserved it for <insert whatever excuse here>!


This has happened in 5 books I've read recently and it's a trend I'd started seeing in reads prior to that as well. And it's irked the ever fucking hell out of me.

I've pretty much got the expression of my meme cat right now.


Real quick I want to point out that I'm not talking about BDSM type reads where floggings, spankings, etc are part of a healthy relationship and agreed upon by both the hero and heroine as a way to enhance their sexual experience together.


I'm talking about lashing out and striking their counterpart out of anger.

In NO way should this be okay.

This is not acceptable behavior from a hero. And it damn well shouldn't be acceptable behavior from a heroine. 
In real life or fiction.

The excuse that a heroine is physically weaker and can't really hurt a hero is absolute shit.
Physical violence is physical violence. And it should be treated as such. 

Physically striking someone out of anger should not be trivialized or treated as acceptable because that person on the aggressive end is female. It shouldn't matter if the male is truly injured or not in the altercation.

A hero 
  • brushing it off as nothing
  • thinking how he deserved to be hit over what he said
  • thinking it's cute because really she didn't HURT him
  • or how big a turn on it is that she hit him (how many times have you read about a hero getting turned on when the heroine was livid angry because she was so beautiful with that fire in her eyes?)
Or the heroine feeling justified in lashing out in such a manner because the hero was frustrating her or pissed her off...

It's dangerous territory and feeds into an unhealthy attitude our society has regarding men and physical violence. You see it in movies as well so it's definitely not just a romance book thing.

In my opinion it flat out shouldn't be happening in a romance book (or movie) and if it does happen? There should be serious repercussions no matter who the aggressor happens to be. Did it ruin these particular reads for me? Not as a whole. But it definitely tainted my views of the heroines in question and irked me right good. Romance should promote healthy relationships. Bumps along the way..totally acceptable. Physically lashing out with the intent to harm...so fucking not okay. 

This was really more of an Anna-needs-to-vent post instead of a discussion post because I'm kinda pissed off (okay really pissed off) over the double standard that keeps popping up but yall feel free to chime in if you'd like. Those are my two cents for what they're worth...





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