GOODNESS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT
K D: I think the double standard is alive and well in mystery literature. Guys fall into bed readily (they're 'studs') while girls are practically celibate (they're not 'sluts'). Before I read too much into this, though, it might be the authors making sure we can identify and admire our protagonists. Would you follow a woman protag who hopped into and out of bed? Maybe not.
For example, I think Janet Evanovich's "bounty hunter with an attitude" doesn't get into bed with Joe Morelli till the fourth book in the series. Not exactly a hop into bed type of girl.
Can you think of some female protags that moved a little faster?
Kaye: Definitely. Lisa Scottoline's character Cate Fante, in *Dirty Blonde.* (This blog is probably a BIG spoiler for two of Lisa's books, by the way.) I was a little shocked when I got into this book, then a little titillated, then a lot fascinated. The main character is a judge who has a sexual hangup. She picks up strangers in bars, has sex with them, then goes back to her lawyerly, orderly life. Well, not all that orderly, since she has murder to deal with. Ms. Scottoline's Natalie Greco, in *Daddy's Girl,* also has a secret life, but, if I remember correctly, her secret is a secret even from herself.
K D: But did they get punished for it? You know, the plots of my least-favorite operas: "Guys Can't Share." Woman sleeps with more than one guy, woman winds up dead. That plot. I hate it.
Kaye: Scottoline pulls these off beautifully. I don't think her characters are punished for their promiscuity. They're well written so that the characters are sympathetic and the reader is rooting for them. The author takes care to establish that they've become the way they are through no fault of their own. I highly recommend both books, by the way. Even with these spoilers, I think they'd still be fun reads.
K D: Well, I do like Cleo Coyle's book , Murder Most Frothy. Clare and her daughter are spending the summer in East Hamptom, working for a rich friend who is setting up a high-end coffee shop in town. Clare is concerned that her daughter (age about 20, I think) is having a summer fling and will get hurt. Then Clare finds herself considering her own possibilities for a short-term romance. Is summer fun okay, or must morality rule even at the beach? It's one of the few books shows a little balance, in my opinion.
Click here for info on the book.
Kaye: I admit I haven't read any of hers, but I intend to remedy that!
K D: I enjoy murder mysteries that include some sensual pleasures. Chocolate. Quebecois food. Pleasant sex. Why not? I think that word Slut should be banished from the vocabulary. How about Wanton Woman instead?
Kaye: One of Laurell K. Hamilton's characters can fit the Wanton Woman image. (Although I might bring back Slut here.) Her fantasy heroine, Anita Blake, started out proper enough, torn between a vampire and a werewolf. According to my daughter, whose reads this genre more than I do, Anita held off until book 6 (*The Killing Dance*) when she slept with one of them. Then by book 10 (*Narcissus in Chains*), Anita, had become, in essence, a different character, sleeping around with abandon. Her fans were not happy about the switch. Her later books are considered erotica and she has lost fans along the way. So, in this case, the writer didn't get away with it, even if the character did.
OPEN QUESTION: Do any readers of this blog have experience in other genres where the gender difference plays a greater or lesser role in bed-hopping? I know romance has greatly evolved since I was reading it. I would imagine science fiction would not have as much of a difference?
I have a slutty amateur sleuth, but I've had no luck whatsoever getting her adventures published. She's married by the way, which ups the ante a lot. It was the only inner-conflict thing that I could think of that hadn't already been done 60 times, and apparently it won't be done at all.
ReplyDeleteSo I've switched to writing suspense with a divorcee the protag, which may go over better.
Sigh!
JudyC
I have an unpublished slutty sleuth, too, but I haven't been querying this project very long, so I have hopes for her. She's more of a naive, gullible type who falls for the lines guys give her.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, Judy. Maybe our time will come!
And I (BSP alert) have a hardboiled amateur sleuth who is literally a prostitute. She solves the case either to get herself out of a jam or to defend her business.
ReplyDeleteI have done well with short stories about my character, Diana Andrews, but my novels have not sold so far.
I agree with KD that the double standard is alive and kicking where female sleuths are concerned. But if mystery readers can empathize with a female sleuth and understand her psychological make up, I think they'll be more accepting of her having more than one lover.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy both reading and writing mysteries that include a romantic element. I get a kick out of the romantic mishaps of M.C.Beaton's
Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth as they solve murders.
Marilyn
Albert, I've read a few of your Diana Andrews stories and liked them. Good luck on the novels!
ReplyDelete-Kaye
I don't like Wanton Woman either. If a term cannot apply to both men and women, it should be considered valid. I so sick of the double standard ESPECIALLY when women inflict it on their own sex.I know, ten thousand years of brain bonbardment isn't something easily overcome.
ReplyDeleteI readily agree with you about Anita Blake. She started out almost cozy and humorous and went off the deep end. Not that I minded her sleeping around but the violence became to much.
Patg
Pat, my daughter, who was a fan of Anita Blake in the beginning, thinks that Hamilton would have been fine if she had started a new series with a new character, rather than using an old one who had never exhibited that behavior before. She had one type of fan, and that type wasn't the second type.
ReplyDeleteI think Slut can be used for both sexes. Is there a better term?
Better term. Well, I guess we have to think about the content of 'sleeping around' because right off the top of my head I'd say that there are 3 or 4 categories.
ReplyDeleteFalls in love with every member of the opposite sex that show him/her a drop of interest.
Sleeps with anyone when he/she is drunk.
Sleeps with someone for gain.
Experimenting for technique that suits.
Oh, and let's not forget:
Just plain stupid, thinks it's the only way to get people to like him/her.
And there are the the addicits.
Different name for all of them? I think so. One name does not fit all.
Patg
Well late here you see but thanks to you I've got something by Lisa Scottoline to read. I love promiscuous heroines, I've searched across all the genres and have found so little. I've become so disappointed that perhaps I would write such heroine myself in due time (it will be a contemporary fantasy book), there are so many heroines in contemporary fantasy but hardly any whom I prefer and for that matter I haven't read Anita Blake books because Mrs. Hamilton has done something which no one can surpass (sleeping with several different people during the course of the day) and she hasn't done it the way I would have liked (her heroine thinks she is slut (hate the term) OK because she didn't start that way but you are right that Mrs. Hamilton should have started a book with different character. She has even another such heroine in Merry gentry who was promiscuous from beginning but after being in a committed relationship with a douchebag and I prefer heroines who have no qualms about enjoyinng themselves and such behaviour is their character trait and not on and off thing. LKH has left me disappointed and frustrated. She ventured in this territory of erotic fantasy so freely that if anybody else wants to roam there he/she will be second to her and nobody has tried. I cannot describe how painful it is to me, I had this notion of female heroines in my fantasy fiction since a long time before LKH started dabbling there and I feel lost.
ReplyDeleteIn murder mystery genre I have googled various combinations to come out with the books featuring such female characters but to no effect and the most prominent search result has been for Phryne Fischer murder mysteries by Kerry Greenwood.
When Men's Adventure Fiction ruled, there were such spy heroines written by men like Baroness, Cherry Delight and a few others but they aren't much worth.
In general I've been disappointed by the American authors there is so much around but not what I seek (I'm American). Kerry Greenwood is Australian, perhaps in European Fiction such heroines are more common. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series is one and I've seen in French comic books and graphic novels the heroines are genrelly more sexually liberated. Speaking of graphic novels if somebody is interested in fantasy then Artesia is pretty good and her heroine enjoys sex so much but the series is incomplete.
I would be reporting here in future (need to check Antonia Fraiser's Jemima Shore mysteries) is I happen to find more such heroines but seriously I'm disappointed with what is out there. Writers provide fade to black sex if you feel it is not needed but please provide me the heroines I'm interested in.