And so the “hero” of the sequel to the novel I was ranting about last night is having vicious buttsecks with a woman he picked up in a bar, making her face he other way because he doesn’t want to look at her face, and as soon as he’s done he dismounts. She asks to take a shower. He tells her to get out.

Is this what passes for an Alpha male these days? If so, we are trending back to the 70s when the hero raped the heroine, or “took her by force” as they used to put it, and eventually she learned to like it.

Back in the 90s we of the Romance Writers of America agreed as a collective that this was unacceptable in a hero and in real life, and the rapist hero died a swift and well deserved death.

Sister readers, sister writers, the Alpha hero is take-charge, brave, honest, firm and looks after his woman. And no matter how out there the sex, it’s done with respect. We as romance writers have a responsibility to expect better of our heroes, so that we can educate, encourage and inspire our readers to expect better from their men. Sexual violence, misogyny and hate is and never will be, romantic. *flings book out of window.

A few years ago I had the displeasure of reading the worst sex scene in a romance novel up till then, in which the “hero”, and I use the term loosely, spies on the heroine while she is taking a shower, and masturbates. I threw the book out and didn’t finish it. Sick peeping toms aren’t heroes in my book. (Pun, ha.) Today I read a scene in which the quote hero unquote, during a quote love scene unquote, shoves two finger up the heroine’s ass. Now, I’ve always thought of myself as a sexual liberal, and am all for the consenting adult thing. My own novels are fairly racy, though not explicit. But to me sex in romance novels should be glorious, larger than life, transcendental, emotional, sweet, shivery, and sprinkled with fairy dust. The hero shouldn’t carry the star-girl around like a bowling ball.