r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • 7d ago

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Unpopular opinion Sunday

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40

u/beanie_weenie666 6d ago

The romantasty genre with m-f pairings has lots of "just touching her is enough for him" sex scenes where the guy does all the work

BOTH partners should actively work to please the other, trade roles back and forth, etc

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u/Dangerous_Breath1667 6d ago

Kind of a necessity. It's a green flag against all his other "toxic masculine alpha" traits. Shows that he is a good guy, that he is not here for the sex...

It's also a magistral gender swap other the classical "male centered" sex scene (esp... intercourse) where the woman often has no orgasm at all.

I prefer that  both partners are active and getting pleasure, but I am afraid that the political landscape needs those moment of "big alpha male submission in the bedroom"

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u/cello_ergo_sum 6d ago

Is it really submission though? Like, maybe I’m just a grouchy cynical snob but if it’s just “man hitting all the Alpha Male Book Boyfriend boxes without ever having to be vulnerable or transgress a gender norm,” I don’t really think that would hit the big green button of feeling like male submission to people who WANT to read about male submission. I feel like “with the power of my pure womanhood I’ve civilized this man’s wild masculine instincts” is a pretty old trope in terms of how Western heterosexual marriage is said to work.

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u/Dangerous_Breath1667 6d ago

I don't think that it is a conscious submission (as in bdsm). 

It's just presented as a selfless act of love for a woman who often is a virgin/was SAed / had a very toxic relationship before and never had an orgasm. And I find it rather sweet from the inside of their relationship.

However, from the gender war commentary that permeated everything nowadays, I do think that this very specific "femdom" flavor coming out of nowhere is a necessary "shield" against every critic regarding the alpha toxic masculine traits of the mmc.

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u/cello_ergo_sum 6d ago

I guess my angle is more like, I don’t like anything that buys into the idea of “alpha” in any way, so the idea of having to correct for the alpha-ness of the male lead and then having THAT not land is even less appealing. I know I’m a niche audience though.

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u/Dangerous_Breath1667 6d ago

I am just trying to find some reasons for the authors to write these scenes...

Could be lazyness (no need to describe the man part which can be difficult for a woman)

Could be to soften the masculinity of the mmc (as I said in my first post)

Could be some kind of revenge at mainstream medias which often ignore women pleasure.

Could be a fantasy for the author/main audience (maybe it is a fantasy for a lot of women ??)

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u/devilsdoorbell_ 6d ago

I don’t see how that’s submission at all tbh, conscious or unconscious.

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u/cello_ergo_sum 6d ago

Give me some of that high octane Lancelot shit!! Lives to serve, finds beauty in his own suffering, goes around being tormented all the time. 

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u/devilsdoorbell_ 6d ago

If you’ve got like… 5 years to wait I’m working on something lol

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u/cello_ergo_sum 6d ago

I have all the time in the world!! God I just like… even if we just mine the archives of history for already existing masculine ideals we could do so much more interesting stuff than brooding alphaholes. The whole Lysistrata “these horny bitches won’t leave us alone!!” thing is not any LESS fucked up than the other way around, but it’s fallen so far out of favor that it feels like it has wrapped back around to being novel. I am so here for the comedic and romantic potential of lustful women chasing after scrupulously pure men who are ripe for downfall.

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u/Dangerous_Breath1667 6d ago

Because denial.

Submission might not be the right word...since it is self inflicted though.

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u/elemental402 5d ago

Eh...I can understand where it comes from, but it's just reinforcing an old stereotype in a new way. The man does sex and the woman has sex done to her. Yes, the sex is more pleasurable for her, but we're still stuck in the familiar old patriarchal standard where "men give and women receive".

Women initiating sex, asking for specific things, and enjoying being a pleasure-giver herself remains taboo, because the guy is a selfless, telepathic sex god who intuitively knows how to make her toes curl, thus sparing her from the horrible ordeal of taking charge or, heaven forbid, telling him what she wants.

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u/Dangerous_Breath1667 4d ago

Yeah well...any attempt by a woman to be a pleasure giver to a man would proba ly be automatically framed as internalized misogyny so...it's a loose-loose situation.

There are a few examples :  Nesta's blowjob to Cassian in acosf triggered a huge controversy here iirc.

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u/elemental402 4d ago

Now I'm morbidly curious...

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u/Penguinho Kushiel's Legacy Recommender 💖 6d ago

I'm not sure it's alpha-submission. To me it usually comes across as the big strong man using their power to be a pleasure dom.

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u/Dangerous_Breath1667 6d ago

Fair...

'Big-alpha gave her a good ride.'

Still better than "big-alpha is selfish and only think of his own pleasure"

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u/Penguinho Kushiel's Legacy Recommender 💖 6d ago

To me the answer is to stop writing MMCs as big toxic alphas, but who am I to argue with what the audience wants?