Do Fat Girls Need Love Too?

It has come to our attention that some of our readers/lurkers took issue with one of my (Dylan) reviews, Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner. Their issue is something we here at Sanctuary's Finest have discussed amongst ourselves before. So let me start by asking you guys a question.

Do you guys like reading books with large heroines?

Several heroines come to mind when thinking about this topic. There's Minn Dobbs from Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me, Bride McTierney from Sherrilyn Kenyon's Night Play and from one of the latest books I've read, Heather Wells from Meg Cabot's Heather Wells Series. Now all of these heroines were not the skinny model types, they were solid, plus size women that we see everyday around town.

Some of us may be plus size women ourselves and there's nothing wrong with that, I don't hate, I congratulate but what I want to know is it's one thing to be friends with plus size women and to be a plus size woman but would you want to read about these same kinds of plus size women getting their freaky freak on with the hottie hero in our books?

Do you or don't you?

I personally have no qualms about reading books with large women starring in them. It's one of those non issues for me. Now, I won't say that incredulous thoughts like, "Yeah right, these gorgeous stud muffin guys that ALL women are fawning over is going to choose and fall in love with so and so plus size heroine.." don't pop into my head from time to time because they do. As much as I would LOVE to believe something like that (I'm not a small girl, let me tell you), I just don't see it happening. Most all of the men that I come in contact with at work, at Church and just around town are all fawning over and falling in love with the Heidi Klums and the Jessica Alba's of the world. Women like Sara Ramirez and Queen Latifa, who are beautiful women, don't get the attention and the adoration that other women (Heidi Klum and Jennifer Lopez) do. At least we don't see it very often.

I'm not saying that men don't love large women but most men usually go for smaller women and to prove my point, we've asked 10 different men that we know (very good looking men too) if they'd give a larger woman the time of day against a skinny model type woman.

My brother, Pete, who is one of those extremely handsome men that girls just can't help but fall in love with, had this to say on the matter, "If she pays like she weighs then she can stay, baby!" and after some scolding on my part, finished on a more serious note saying, "Honestly, larger women don't even make it to my radar. But it depends on what you think is fat, I don't consider you (me, Dylan) fat, but you think you're fat so everyone has their own interpretation of what is fat. Now if we're talking sizes, then I'd say anything over a size 16 is fat and no, I probably wouldn't try to get at her."

That seems to be the general consensus from all the men we polled. "No, we don't even look at larger women." Is that right? No, not necessarily, but it is reality. Whether it's society, or the way we were brought up, or whatever, weight does factor in when it comes to attraction.

Are there exceptions? Absolutely. But the normal response from a man is the one you see above.

To take this a step further I (Holly) surveyed women, asking what they're typical fantasy weight is. The average response? Size 7. As a follow up, I asked them how they see themselves when they fantasize about the perfect man. One of my best friends, who's probably a size 14 said, "Oh, girl, I see myself as all kinds of skinny, and more beautiful than anyone else in the world. Is that real? Hell no, but this is my fantasy, right? I can be whatever I want to be."

In my opinion, that's what it comes down to. Fantasy. I think one of the reasons larger women are scarce in romance novels is that no one, whether your small and petite, or large and in charge, really fantasizes about being big. Are there exceptions to this? YES! But I would imagine that if we (as women) were totally honest, no matter what our sizes are right this second, in a perfect world - a fantasy world - we'd be a size 2 and so gorgeous we'd blind me.

I'm not saying that's reality, but it's fantasy. And that's what romance novels are, the ultimate fantasy. A romance novel offers us a chance to escape to another world, where the fat girl gets skinny and grabs her man, or the beautiful woman who's abused by her family is rescued by the dazzling, orgasmic, fantastically hot hero. In our own personal fantasies, I'd be willing to bet that we don't picture ourselves at 500 pounds. So why do we want to read a book about it?

Personally? I don't care. It doesn't bother me one bit if the heroine is bigger than a size 3. I actually prefer a more "normal" looking heroine. A size 12 is the national average, you know.

But other women, Jazz included, prefer not to read about that. We could start some psycho-babble bullshit and say it's because they aren't comfortable with themselves, but I don't believe that. I believe that it all just comes down to personal preference.

For myself, I may not mind a bigger heroine, but man, I cannot stand it when a heroine is older than her hero. Especially if the main focus of the story is their age difference. I don't want to read about a heroine who happens to think the hero is "young enough to be her son". Sorry, doesn't work for me. Does that mean other people agree? Nope. I happen to have some very close friends who prefer that particular storyline, but it's not for me.

And you know what? That's fine. You have your preferences and I have mine. That doesn't make either one of us wrong, just different, and there's nothing wrong with that.

To be totally honest, I would actually prefer to see more "large" women featured in romance novels. Why? Because it makes it more real. When I read Night Play and Bet Me, my heart melted because those heroines weren't a perfect size 5, and those heroes loved them - all of them - for who they were. It didn't matter to Cal one bit that Min was larger than average, and Vane's comment to Bride when she asked him to make her skinny had me tearing up (won't spoil it for those who haven't read it, but man was it touching!). I love that.

Same with He Loves Lucy by Susan Donovan and Jemmima J by Jane Greene. Those heroines were bigger than "average" too, but I adored reading about them - sex scenes and all.

What it all comes down to is personal preference. You have yours and I have mine. What I might like, you might hate. That's ok. That makes us different. And you know what? That helps authors sell books. If we all liked the same thing no one would get published, right?

But I'm curious, what's too much fantasy and too much reality? You tell me. What exactly do we want in our novels? Are we ok with large heroines and short heroes? Do we want rich men and poor women? Are we too demanding? Is it possible to strike a good balance between fantasy and reality?