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Sex, Power, Feminism and the New Adult Heroine (Part 2)

I ended last week’s This Author’s Life #Thursday with this question:

So how does that increased sexual assurance translate into a twenty-first century feminism and female and empowerment?

And now it’s time to talk about it.

I’ve been a feminist all of my life, though that ideology has taken a variety of forms, and some purists might argue that I’ve deviated from the path now and then. However, in the strictest sense of the word–that feminism is all about advocating for and believing in the rights and abilities of women–I’ve always been a feminist. I believe women have the ability to do whatever they desire.

However, while I know that women and men should be treated equally, it doesn’t necessarily mean the same. While I know that I can hold a job, lead a government or fight in a battle, I still want to have doors held for me. I still want a man to treat me like a lady, and I am more than happy to treat him like a gentleman. Equality does not negate gender roles.

In 2015, we pay nice lip service to equality. There is a still a gender gap in wages, and there still exists some sense that women cannot be responsible or strong as men. We’ve passed laws to make changes, but laws don’t change hearts and minds.

Women who are strong and take charge are still thought as bitchy, while men who do the same are admired.

Women whose comfort with their sexuality might lead to multiple partners are considered sluts, while men who sleep with multiple women are called studs.

Let’s stop and consider this: if we persist in this way of thinking, we are not only slowing the evolution of women’s rights, we are in effect creating a class of women who can never be anything but so-called sluts. If we allow that men having multiple sex partners is okay–but the same is not true for women–there must be a group of women having sex with the studs whom society will shame and deride.

Do you see the level of unfairness here?

How does this, any of this, relate to books and writing? Well, I believe strongly that how we depict people in fiction has an enormous impact on how we view and related to them in real life. So when we only create characters who make ‘good’ sexual choices and reward them accordingly within the story, we’re saying that’s what we expect of girls outside literature. When we choose to punish characters who make what society might consider questionable sexual choices–through consequence or simply by portraying them as less than desirable–we’re saying that women can only expect those same results in real life.

Let’s take the book I’ve been talking about all week, Sarina Bowen’s The Shameless Hour. If you haven’t read it and you don’t want to be spoiled, please stop now. I can’t delve into this topic without talking about specifics.

We all good? Spoilers are okay?

Bella is a character who, it is clear from the beginning, has made sexual choices that are very different from those we usually see in our heroines. Bella likes sex. She has a lot of it. She’s friendly and tactile with her friends on the hockey team, and she’s mistrusted and not liked by other girls. Bella doesn’t have girl friends.

When she meets Rafe, he’s just been dumped by his girlfriend on the night they were slated to have sex for the first time, both of them virgins. Bella comforts Rafe, and then, as it’s second nature to her, she has sex with him, not knowing that this is his first experience.

Rafe’s guilt for sleeping with a girl he doesn’t know well and for indulging in what he sees as casual sex makes him leave in the middle of the night and avoid Bella for weeks. Bella, for her part, feels the rebuff as judgment on Rafe’s part. It hurts, even though she doesn’t regret her actions.

She does end up regretting a night with a football player not long thereafter, because the jerk gives her chlamydia. When she goes to tell him, so that he can be treated, too, he drugs her drink and with his frat brothers, writes horrible and derisive words on her body, takes pictures and puts them up on a website.

Now Bella is broken. She’s alone, devastated that this could happen to her. Rafe comes to her aid, and over the course of the next months, he helps her to recover both mentally and emotionally, with the help of a new friend–Bella’s first female pal.

What’s different about this book is that we are on the side of the shamed female. We’re not seeing this story through the eyes of the hockey player’s girlfriend, the ‘good’ girl who hates the slutty team manager. We see Bella as a real, whole person, not a caricature. And Rafe, in all his undoubted masculinity, is this time in the role we so often see saved for girls: he wants sex to mean something. He wants a relationship with Bella, not just casual fun. He’s willing to wait and deny himself in order to have that. It’s a nice change to see a man portrayed with such feeling.

Bella is a strong, powerful character. Part of that strength is her sexuality and her comfort with it. I feel that Joss in Undeniable is the same, and even Meghan from The Last One. I’m happy that we’re seeing more of these women populating our books.

Until we’re ready to accept strong sexualized females in our favorite stories, we won’t be able to accept them in our society.

And now I’m climbing off my soap box. Next week we’ll talk about something far more frivolous and not at all weighty. I promise.

I’m Reading The Shameless Hour by Sarina Bowen

We’ve been playing with a theme here the last week or so: strong females, sexuality and how it’s all portrayed in contemporary literature, more specifically in New Adult romance. The book I’ve been reading over the last week is a perfect example of how that’s done well.

You might remember I read the first two Ivy Years books last month and really enjoyed them. I was thrilled to see this new installment come out in April, but since it didn’t involve the main characters from the first two, I was a little worried. Happily, the story was so good and the characters so very engaging that I was immediately captivated. But what drew me in even more was one of the main themes of this novel: healthy sexuality and the role of shaming in our culture.

Bella, the female lead, is an unabashedly sexual character. It’s clear early on that she’s perfectly comfortable with her own body, with her sexuality and with a series of partners. She’s the hockey team’s manager, and she’s definitely more at home with men than she is with girls; we notice that she doesn’t really have any female friends, and the attitudes of the hockey girlfriends are less than warm. Still, the fact that Bella doesn’t feel shame–and in fact celebrates her choices–makes the reader comfortable with her, too.

When she encounters her upstairs neighbor Rafe needing some cheering up, Bella does what comes naturally. His response–or Bella’s perception of it–in the weeks that follow shake her convictions, but what happens next nearly destroys her life. I won’t spoil it, but the way the author weaves this story, subtly showing how easy it is to jump to judgement in situations we don’t understand, is remarkable and extremely well-done.

The juxtaposition of Bella’s open sexuality and that of the men at her school, and how both of those are perceived by others, is eye-opening. (More on that Thursday.)

From a strictly-story point of view, this was fabulous. The love story is gently developed, with believable ebbs and flows. Bella’s evolution and maturity is also nicely done, and I’m excited that one of the related characters will have her own story! (Yay! More Ivy Years!)

If you haven’t tried these books yet, I highly recommend them. Actually, I can’t say enough good about them. One click ’em now.

The One Trilogy Tease

THE LTKTO3FINALAST ONE

“Hi.” Her voice was low, and one side of her mouth lifted in a smile.

“I see you girls got home. Finally.” I didn’t mean to say them, but the words came blasting out before I thought about it. Because she was Meghan, and she never did what I expect-

ed, she only lifted one eyebrow.
“I brought your sister home as promised, safe and sound.

I had one beer, hours ago, and my car didn’t break down.” She slid her foot between both of mine, her eyes still steady. “This is where you say, ‘Thank you, Meghan.’”

I let out a breath. “Yeah. Thanks. How drunk is she? Did she get groped?”

“Not by me.” Her smile grew, and she pivoted sideways and dropped onto my lap. Out of instinct, I caught her by the hips.

“What are you doing?”

“You brought up groping. It seemed like a good idea.” She leaned onto my chest and twined her arms around my neck. “You kissed me this morning. I know you said it was a mistake, and maybe you meant that. But right now, I don’t care. I want to kiss you.” She brought her lips to my jaw, nipping along the line until she reached my ear. “What do you think, Sam?”

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THE FIRST ONE

“How did I ever get lucky enough to deserve you?” Ali laid her head on the back of the seat. “What do you see in me? I’m not special.”

“You’re the most special. Ali, you’re beautiful, and not just on the outside. You’re nice to people, you’re funny, and . . .” I TKTO8finalshrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t describe it. I just know it.”

“I love you, Flynn.” She said it as though she couldn’t help it, as though the words surprised her as much as they did me. “I—I know that sounds weird, or maybe you’re not ready—”

“I love you, Ali.” I spoke before she could backtrack any- more. “I’ve loved you for a long time. It’s not weird. It just is.”

“When did you know?”

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure she’d want to hear this, to know the truth. But I’d promised to be honest and open with her always. “It was after your parents. After the accident.”

There was a brief flare of pain on her face, but she didn’t look away, so I went on. “You were hurting so much, and you were so sad. Crushed. I knew then that I never wanted to leave you. I wanted to do anything to make sure you never had to feel that way again, for the rest of your life. I never want to be away from you.” I sucked in a breath and for the first time, I spoke the words that would both define us and doom us. “I want you to come with me, Ali, when I leave Burton. This town, it’s just . . . too small. I’m getting out of here as soon as we graduate. I’m going to see the world. I’m going to travel as far as I can, for as long as I can. And I want you to come with me.”

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TKTO5FINAL

THE ONLY ONE

I opened the kitchen door, sniffing in appreciation. Meat- loaf. But although dinner was clearly underway, Rilla and Piper were nowhere to be seen. I was about to call their names when I heard music coming from down the hall.

Following the sound, I headed for my mother’s room, where the unmistakable lyrics and tune of Come on, Eileen were blasting. I glanced into the room and then did a double take.

Rilla was dancing. She had the music turned up loud, and she was swinging her hips in time with it. Those jeans that had been making me hot and bothered for quite a while clung to her ass as she shook it. And she was singing along.

I was a musician, and even more, I had the gift of recognizing musical talent. It had been my job in Nashville, and I was damned good at it. I’d heard the magic in Lu’s voice the first time we met. It had been a big part of falling in love with her.

Rilla didn’t have talent. She didn’t sing badly, but she was barely on key. She wasn’t going to win any talent contests, and she’d never be signing a recording contract. But all the same, the sound of her belting out those words, some of which she got horribly wrong, was one of the most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard.

She was singing with such joy and abandon. And she was dancing with the same freedom. My pretty girl had never looked more beautiful to me.

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Where do you find your musical muse?

I’m just about to start on a new book, and I need musical inspiration. Most of the time, I have one or two songs that let me know what genre the playlist will be, but it doesn’t always fall out easily.

musicnotesThere’s a few ways that I find new songs. One is just random listening. I’ll start writing, or even just working on promotions or other business fun, with music in the background. The catch is that it can’t be music I’ve selected. I’ll toss on the music channel on my television, or I’ll click on Pandora or Spotify and just randomize the music. Usually, it becomes background noise until suddenly a phrase or lyric will jump out at me . . . at which point I scribble down the name and artist, add it to a list of potentials (and usually look up the lyrics, too).

I’ve discovered not only new songs, but new bands that way, too.

Another great source of new muse comes from my kids. When I drive my daughter to work, she’s always playing brand-new, cutting-edge music. I frequently say, “Who is that? Send me the name!”

I’m in that stage now as I write The Plan. I know a little about Emmy’s taste–she loves her some country–and I just discovered that Cooper is still wrapped up in the hard-rock of the ’80s . . . so I’m listening to an odd mix of both right now.

How do you find new music?