Bonus Episode, interstitial, S02 - Interstitials, romance recommendations, guest host, New Year's Eve Jennifer Prokop Bonus Episode, interstitial, S02 - Interstitials, romance recommendations, guest host, New Year's Eve Jennifer Prokop

S02.17: Pegging Romance

It’s the start of a new year, Romance is on fire, and we all need a palate cleanser, so we’re doing it right, with the bonus episode that was an item in the Romance for RAICES auction, hosted by Love in Panels. The bidding didn’t go quite the way we expected but we are honestly thrilled, because we were a tiny part of raising $23,000 for refugee services and immigrant families on the border. Please donate early and often to RAICES and The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.

Please welcome friend of the pod, Sierra Simone, for our very special Pegging Episode (And thank you to the Pegging Collective for your generous donation, and for being wonderful listeners)!

Auspicious beginning, right? Don’t miss a single moment of our 2020 episodes — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast if you’re so inclined!

We’re back next week (WE PROMISE!) with Born in Ice, by none other than the queen herself, Nora Roberts. Read Born in Ice at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local indie.

Show Notes

SimoneScaleTM.jpg

TRANSCRIPT

Jen Prokop 0:39
I don't even have words right now but we do have a very special guest

she's been cursed by podcast fairies though.

Sarah MacLean 0:50
It may be like it may be at some sort of flu podcast

flu podcast. Oh, there you go

Sierra Simone 0:56
just as pegging itself takes multiple tries to get Alright, so to the pagan podcast

Jen Prokop 1:05
Well, there you go. I guess y'all know what we're talking about tonight.

Sarah MacLean 1:09
Everyone Sierra Simone is with us today. Hello

Sierra Simone 1:12
everyone you know

Jen Prokop 1:14
Sarah and I are not messing around and sometimes you just need to bring in an expert so on this faded mates Welcome everyone we have a very a very special episode. It's kind of like a Lifetime movie. If you remember those when you were a kid only like way more instructive?

Because

Unknown Speaker 1:32
we got help and support I said, see nothing like those Lifetime movie.

Sarah MacLean 1:40
Like, my sister is my mom.

Jen Prokop 1:50
But okay, sure.

Sarah MacLean 1:54
Okay, so we should talk about so yes. Welcome, everybody to faded mate. I'm Sarah McClain.

Jen Prokop 2:01
I'm generally romance

are we going in

Sarah MacLean 2:07
you and then if we have to introduce our

Unknown Speaker 2:08
guest, I mean, right.

Sarah MacLean 2:11
And then we are here today with Sarah Simone who everyone remembers from our McRib episode. Sarah, have you only been here for one episode?

Jen Prokop 2:19
No.

Sierra Simone 2:21
I think it's just been one. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm present.

Jen Prokop 2:26
We have to do everyone several.

We've recorded with her four times, but she's gonna only be on twice

Sierra Simone 2:36
but you only get to hear okay, but

Sarah MacLean 2:38
here's the deal. So this is well and we also we have a third one even we have a third lined up already. We already know you're coming back. Yo, it's like, Saturday Night Live where people get t shirts. People get gifts when they hit milestones like maybe when you hit five will send you like a

amazing

Sierra Simone 2:58
amazing

Sarah MacLean 3:06
Kansas.

Sierra Simone 3:08
It really is. I mean, I'm the mayor of Minaj. County, Kansas.

I don't know, but I'm the mayor of it.

Well, thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to be here. We're so happy to have you and

Sarah MacLean 3:25
so let's give a little background on where how this started. We so Suzanne over at Levin panels, who is fabulous, and was looking around in 2019 at the world and going like what the fuck is happening is that none of us could could really stop saying that, and I was paralyzed, but, but Suzanne decided that she was gonna put her good work into mobilizing romance to into a auction to benefit nonprofit organizations on the southern border of the United States working with displaced families, children who have been displaced or taken from their parents and other people who

Jen Prokop 4:15
are really going through it

Sarah MacLean 4:17
down there. And romance really delivered in a huge way. The auction was massive, I think bigger than Suzanne could have imagined. Oh, I think it raised like 15 or 20 grand It was a lot. Yeah, you guys did awesome. So thank you to everyone who donated time money. product to that. We Jen and I were really really excited to be able to donate an episode of fate of mates, by which we meant like you pick the topic.

Like, we'd like you to talk about the bridgeton series

episode on princesses.

Jen Prokop 5:04
Women with really nice shoes.

Sarah MacLean 5:09
You Joker's a group of you got together and you raise a shit ton of money. Thank you so, so much. And you called yourself the pegging cabal. We have your name, we're going to name you at the end of this episode with pride. And you won the auction and you asked us to do an episode on pegging. And after sort of a couple of non starter ideas like what if we do a whole episode of characters named Margaret or

Sierra Simone 5:42
totally forgot we're

Jen Prokop 5:43
gonna do that. I was like, we're gonna rickroll them.

Sarah MacLean 5:49
Pirate romance.

We decided to really get serious get down to business, so to speak, and we called in the dirtiest person we know

Sierra Simone 6:00
The owner, thank you operator

Sarah MacLean 6:01
and developer of the Simone scale tm.

Simone, like pegging on the small scale is like, slightly to the north of Darcy looking at.

Jen Prokop 6:17
Like, making a cup of tea with two tea bags. That's about how sexy it is in your world. Like, we're gonna need help.

Sierra Simone 6:25
I mean, also actual teabagging is on, but like,

Jen Prokop 6:31
but yes, like, we're

Sierra Simone 6:32
talking like real, real mild stuff for pegging. So I was like, yeah, hell yes, I'm here. Yeah. What

Unknown Speaker 6:38
do you mean you need an expert? What's wrong,

Jen Prokop 6:42
guys? Important point, Sarah tweet. I think I've done more research episodes I ever had for like, my advice.

Sarah MacLean 6:52
was like, I'm getting it together.

Sierra Simone 6:55
That wasn't real good week. Like I feel like our text thread that week was probably like top 10 texts. threads of all time. Okay.

Yeah, we found that playlist, the music playlist, which we will

Sarah MacLean 7:09
course link in show notes and also the peaches song is is is going to play over the course of this episode because

Jen Prokop 7:33
Is this the woman the woman on Twitter who has the pegging? Like new jingle you guys we found some amazing things we're gonna

Sarah MacLean 7:42
get to her she's amazing cuz she's given us permission to play the whole thing. But no, there's there's a peachy song that is like, frankly like meaning.

It also includes meatloaf I would do anything for love.

Jen Prokop 8:02
But I won't do that.

Sarah MacLean 8:15
There is like a three part dissertation on on the internet about Ariana Grande a having

Sierra Simone 8:23
to pegging Dangerous Woman don't know how

Unknown Speaker 8:29
to spend the money.

Unknown Speaker 8:33
completely focused.

Sierra Simone 8:36
It is the classic, dangerous woman.

Jen Prokop 8:41
I think my favorite song on that playlist though, is

Sarah MacLean 8:53
that Eric pops in and production. There's gonna be a lot of great music in this episode. We'll put it all in show notes.

Jen Prokop 9:00
I think also a lot of show notes are going to be like Jen was unable to Google that good luck.

Sarah MacLean 9:07
Jen does show notes at work.

Jen Prokop 9:10
We suggest the search terms x y&z been able to execute that search and keep my job.

See the gray zone is now radioactive.

Sierra Simone 9:27
Well the great thing about Sarah Nice job is that like, if we didn't do this research on our computers, really we'd be letting our job down. So solemn duty Yeah, to investigate every corner of pegging.

Yeah, that's what she said.

Sarah MacLean 9:45
There's no corners in pegging.

Sierra Simone 9:49
I've learned that. That's rule number

one. Corner.

Jen Prokop 9:56
No corners. It's real soft. Round. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 10:05
All right.

Jen Prokop 10:06
Okay, so real serious now, Sarah, I think we'd like Sierra to maybe define pegging for us for

Sarah MacLean 10:13
those of you who don't know, welcome to fate of me. Welcome to this episode.

Okay, good welcome. If this is your first faded mates episode, welcome to the deep end of the pool.

If you combine a series someones newsletter, Twitter account, Facebook, or

Unknown Speaker 10:45
Welcome

Jen Prokop 10:48
Welcome to the kiddie pool.

Unknown Speaker 10:52
perspective, time is a flat circle

Unknown Speaker 10:59
All right.

Jen Prokop 11:00
Sierra, tell us about what pegging is, that's your job. That's why we brought you do all the heavy lifting.

Sierra Simone 11:07
So, um, so this is something that when we were kind of formulating how we were going to talk about pegging in the episode, you know, we did do a little bit of discussion. So sort of the traditional definition of pegging has been penetrative sex, where the penetrating object is actually a toy like a strap on, and the toy is usually worn. And the receptive partner is a man and the active partner, the penetrating partner is a woman and that is, I would say the majority of the pegging you come across in romance, which is a woman wearing a strap on penetrating a man easily. But while we were talking, I think, Jen Was it you who talked to Ilia winters a little bit, I bow Yeah, kind of making sure that there is some inclusivity The definition and that, you know, acknowledging that there can be some biological essentialism and the way that we sort of talk about what pegging is and isn't, and making sure that you know, it's kind of for everyone.

Jen Prokop 12:14
I just want to say like, huge shout out to Elio, who like, was really gracious about taking our questions because we want it I mean, obviously, we're having a lot of fun with this episode, but we don't want to be offensive either. And, you know, it's like kind of this always this question now about gender essential ism. You know, obviously, there are women who do have penises, right? If she's using her own anatomy, is it? Is it pegging? Or is it just like fucking and really, one of the things that Ellie and I ended up talking about was the idea that like people, if, if, if people kind of self identify that the activity they're doing is pegging like than it is, and it's not really like are you know, people get to decide how to like, a sheet put it like deviate from sis normativity in whatever way they Want to. So although I think in the episode work in a really kind of stick to that standard definition, we do want to just sort of, like throw out there that like that. That's not the only way that like pegging works. It's sort of maybe a most common one at this point. But, you know, we fully anticipate that, like, these things are going to just like everything. You know, there's not like really, highly defined borders around it. Like this is an activity that like all people can enjoy in whatever way they want to about that. Yeah,

Sierra Simone 13:28
yes. I love that. And I think that I think that pegging and I hope this is the case that in romance pegging is going to start to expand as it's sort of drifted into the popular consciousness, the way we see it represented and romance will start to expand and kind of breathe into the corners of the room. You know, I kind of think of that, like, what's that science law about how gas will always fill the volume of the container and nice and I feel like I do. like this and romance and inclusivity they do do that. Like once people start bringing awareness of it into the conversation, then you do start to see these stories and narratives pop up that really expand and play with, like, what are the limits of what this can do. And I hope that's the case for pegging. Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 14:18
I think this is really an interesting question, because I think, I think that when we talk about pegging, we're talking about really flipping the script on what sex has traditionally like, is traditionally in like old school, you know, sis hat. romances were like, the penetrative experience is the masculine experience. And I think that that that the idea of normalization of pegging and this these kind of questions about like, how do we rewrite the script on sex so that there is more parity and experiences kind of more We're balanced across or maybe not even balanced, but it's about pleasure. It's about your own desire and your consent within a relationship. And to Missy to write the idea that you're sharing something that maybe is like a stretch for you or like a writer or something you're kind of interested or curious about together and that is also a way that people's relationships develop. And yes is a gift from erotica and from erotic romance. I mean, this has I think, part of the reason why pegging has become more a part of romance and truthfully, when we got this sort of call for this being the fate of mates episode that people wanted, we part of the reason why we felt like we needed an expert to come in and talk was because we wanted somebody who was really deeply connected to erotic romance, who writes erotic romance who understands

the world

of writing for erotic romance readers and who, unlike and somebody who is in in that world right now because it isn't it's a new This is a whole new world opening up from erotic romance I think so much about that really the conversation that we've had with adrionna we had with audrianna Herrera when she was here about like, romance is constantly now it feels like romance of 2019 2020 is pushing the walls down and sort of again like gas right expanding? Yes, you further space.

Sierra Simone 16:34
Well, and I think that that's such an astute observation that because it to me, and I'm not nearly the romance historian that you guys are but when I encountered a lot of sort of older pegging, like I would say around like 2004 to 2007 ish in like Sam handbooks and a Laura's cave books.

Jen Prokop 16:52
Um, it definitely happened

Sierra Simone 16:55
within a very specific BDSM sphere. There was a Definitely like a very certain paradigm that could allow for a man to be penetrated by a woman. And now I think that's completely not the case. And one of the reasons why is that I think it's such a valuable tool or method to explore what power and gender mean inside of a relationship, that it actually connects to a lot of conversations that we're having in 2019. And, you know, in the last few years, and so this idea that like it can move out from just being purely like a symbol of, I mean, almost dominance, like femme Dom culture, to being something that even like limitedly kinky people or not kinky people at all can experience and it can be used on the page as a as a seen as a chessboard for navigating some other bigger, deeper theme.

Jen Prokop 17:56
One of the things I think might be really interesting before we'd like to Talk about specific, like examples is one of the things I like. And I know Sarah, you and I've been like noodling around when we like sort of tried this. The first time is, when people talk about erotic romance, they often talk about, like how sex has to be a really integral part of the plot. Hmm. And one of the things and I and I think that's true, right, like they're the relationship gets, like sort of shown through like, the sexual evolution of their emotional relationship is like really shown through the evolution of their sexual relationship. Right, right. I think one of the other things that I'm I'm really moving towards is the idea that I'm really good. erotic romance, though is also about character development. Yeah. And so you get people really exploring who they are, as they explore, like, their sexual identity, whether and that happens, like with a partner or partners, right, yeah. And I think that that's something that It's really funny because for like a long time, I've kind of really struggled with that first definition of erotic romance like it felt right, but somehow not entirely right. And when I think about it instead is someone really saying, like, I want to explore something new with you. I am learning something new about myself through what we're doing together. I find that to be a really like, electrifying and exciting way of thinking about erotic romance. And I think it's also when I think about the best erotic romance, it's the ones that do that. And I think that that's why like pegging could then be like a really interesting kind of model for this because often it is like, it's not where a book starts, right. It's something that's going to happen later. And, and I think so I just think that's like a really interesting way of thinking about it that like, I don't know, it really makes sense to me. It's like something I feel like I really enjoy and I think Maybe I'll look it up Jennifer Porter on Twitter was maybe one of the people who first like got me thinking in this way and I will definitely try and dig up that thread because I, I really, it was like one of those things where I read it and I was like that I love that idea a lot.

Sarah MacLean 20:15
Well, and I think that that's such an important piece of the puzzle for erotic romance. Like I my biggest one of my biggest frustrations with the way we talk about romance novels in the world is that for so long, I mean, when I started writing Romance A decade ago, which feels like an eternity ago, and like I started reading romance before ebooks existed, like that's, that's kind of the frame of reference that we're talking about here. Right. So like, the most erotic romance at the time that was readily available that you could go to your local library and pick up was someone like Laura Lee right, who was writing a very specific kind of again, like sis heteronormative erotic romance that was not including these kind of these kind of kinks that now no longer feel as kinky, right? But so an interestingly and her and her heroes were completely impenetrable. That's what she said in both

Sierra Simone 21:25
episode we one done

Sarah MacLean 21:30
right, I'm never gonna be able to call a hero.

Jen Prokop 21:36
They all need to just understand that they're all penetrable. It's a better world that way.

Sarah MacLean 21:43
But my point being that

for a long time written my, when I started, there was this sort of sense that we didn't talk about the sex parts of the book like we as writers, as an industry. Kind of glossed over that for I think lots of reasons. But certainly the one of the damage, one of the most damaging parts of that silence about the sex parts was that we never really nailed down a solid definition of what it means to be erotic romance like Yeah, and I think we talked about this a little bit during the mcgroove episode where like, I there's still a question I still see people right now there's the Rita not the Rita entry. window is open, and people are like, well, if I had five sex scenes in my book, is that a contemporary is that erotic and it's like, well,

Jen Prokop 22:43
that's not the that shouldn't be. The crazy number is not that the number is not what's defined,

Sarah MacLean 22:50
but I think we're not look, romance is having a lot of very important conversations right now that need to be had but this is one that also needs to be had in service of This part of the genre, right? Because we should be able to talk about what the value of the erotic romance is. And I think you're right that it is about character. Evolution is through action in this particular way.

Sierra Simone 23:15
I love that idea of evolution through action. Like I think that's such an incredible, just sort of pithy tagline for it. And I want to acknowledge that, you know, we're the sphere in which we're talking about erotic romance is largely geared towards and representing Allah sexuals. And so just with that caveat, I do think that for Allah sexual people, meaning people who are just non Ace, or you know, naturally sexual beings, that sexual identity actually ties into some really super elemental parts of our identities that I think are hard to access and other ways. So like it can be profoundly vulnerable making it can be profoundly therapeutic. Or profoundly traumatizing or, you know, breaking you open to have powerful transformative sex. And so if you have an erotic romance where the It doesn't matter how many sex scenes you have, necessarily, but the sex scene itself is doing work by using sex as a as a gateway into this identity arc that the characters undergoing, I think that that is what makes a compelling erotic romance. And then I think the, a lot of that journey usually is coupled with sort of, I was raised or just sort of the overall culture created these ideas about sexuality inside of me. And so like some of that identity is usually kind of coming into your own and letting go of the harmful paradigms that society has given you. And I think with pegging in particular, that can have a lot to do with like, what is masculinity? Like? What is the matter masculine role in sex. And and I think we can acknowledge probably that there are there are some strains of homophobia right within talking about pegging and how men might feel about it.

Jen Prokop 25:15
If I could just like shout out like literally today, Rome parish dropped a little book in main bite, called a good old affection Hanukkah pegging. And it is a if you read small change, it's ginger and Christopher so these are like characters you kind of already know. But one of the things I really liked about this little and I mean, it's pretty short. I read it in a couple minutes is it starts off with Christopher talking to his friend, because he is like curious it his friend is gay and he's curious about like, Ginger has like wants to try pegging. Christopher is like I think I want to try it but he talks to his friend hearse Question is sort of like, does it hurt? Like, does it hurt to have something up your ass? Right? And the friend is kinda like Jude is like blinking, right? And, and he's like, and they and he's really interesting because he's, he'd like, go, it's I thought it was really great. Like, he's like, I need to go to a friend first who's experienced this to like, talk about, like, my questions and my fears. And you know, it's like, really funny because, like, one of the things he says is like, like, What's the situation? And I was like, You know what, I think that makes it I loved it. Like, I felt like, oh, like, that really is getting out. Like what I think a lot of people would have like, questions about the mechanics of it, and I just thought it anyway, it's like a terrific story. And it's really short and we'll link to it in show notes. But you know, that that whole idea of like him, you know, and and you can tell Jude his friend is like, you know, it doesn't make you gay and he's like, I I'm not trying to say that, like, I really am like, Is it going to hurt like, what do I do to prepare? How do I get ready?

Unknown Speaker 27:00
Right. You know,

Sarah MacLean 27:02
I think that's a really it brings up a whole separate batch of questions about romance in general and how well or not well, it prepares readers for sex. Yeah, right. I mean, I, I think, because I think a lot about the fact like, I think about anal and I think about how I had no idea like romance did not prepare me in any way to like, understand how anal works. Right, right. Oh, yeah. Right. So like, I think so i think that that kind of conversation in romance is really fresh and interesting and should happen more on the page. And, again, it's the place where erotic romance can be doing some really interesting and I think important work. Yeah, you know, the last time we this is the second time we've recorded this episode, because we had a little bit of a problem the first time and that day, I had just been to have an extra While I was sitting there, I was not discussing this episode with the X ray tech surprisingly. But the X ray tech while I was there was saying, Oh, we've had a really interesting day today because you know, your story is definitely the most boring story and somebody else would come in was younger a young man and he had a tube of mascara.

Sierra Simone 28:28
Oh no loss Oh, no,

Unknown Speaker 28:30
no, no

Unknown Speaker 28:31
No learn base everybody know that. Here's the thing, right? Like,

Sarah MacLean 28:36
that's a thing where like, okay, there's this is there's a lot going on, like his, the X ray text response was his mom was real pissed.

And

I can't imagine like I was like, well, it's probably worse for him. And truthfully, like this entire experience is going to be a terrible experience between him and his mom if they can't figure out a way to talk about it. But the reality is like who's was having how are we having these conversations? Like is it romances job to teach us? Like? There's some interesting questions here, right? Like, you know, it is not romance this job to teach us. But like, we don't want porn teaching us. So where do we learn? So I guess in this I mean, this is sort of a much bigger kind of academic and like parenting and you know, a traditional question, but

these

I'm really happy to hear about that conversation in Ron's book because

Jen Prokop 29:32
Yeah, right, exactly. Because I do think it's tricky. Like, I agree with you that this is not exactly it's not romances job to teach. But at the same time, I think it probably behooves at least most writers to know that many people are learning about sex through romance. Yeah. And like, that's like a real tricky thing. I will say I will put a link in show notes to a website that I just think is actually terrific. for teaching about sex, it's called Scarlett teen. And it is literally called, like sex ed for the real world. And it's really aimed at teenagers and like emerging adults, right, like young people, but I, I, I think anybody would benefit like, everything's really straightforward. It's pretty non judgmental. I think it does a pretty good job about addressing like, gender identity. It's not like gender essential, you know what I mean? It's not just like, this is what women are. And I so I do think that like, but I tell a lot of people about Scarlett teen and they're like, I've never heard of that before. And I don't know if I'm just lucky because I work in a school and I know the folks who teach sex ed, but there are resources out there that I think you know, if you're too embarrassed to talk to your kids about sex, like I will say, I know that it's like really hard, but I do think it's like a really important part of our job as parents sprite because

Otherwise you're in the ER

Unknown Speaker 31:03
Yeah.

Sierra Simone 31:04
Lost your $13 tube of mascara.

Jen Prokop 31:10
I mean, who knows how much of the bill is for that?

Sarah MacLean 31:14
Oh god no, but not in you know i'm i'm thrilled that there are resources like this but like also just PSA moms and dads out there listening like, you know talk to your kids about all kinds of sex. Oh yeah things that they might be getting into it's going to be horrifying but enjoy embarrassing them

Sierra Simone 31:36
I think there is a there is a corner of fiction that does sometimes get a little bit more into these things and that's fanfiction because I know I have read fanfiction that is a little bit more detail oriented because it's you know, maybe it's written by a young person who like actually googled how to peg the I know I've read some fanfiction that was really illuminating and taught me some things. And I think I actually think in 2019 there's actually a lot of permeability between fan fiction and romance right now. Sure, I think I think a lot of fan fiction readers have grown up to be romance readers because they've been trained by slash fig by you know, reading these alternate universes with their favorite characters falling in love. And so they just sort of naturally graduated into romance, but they expect the same diversity and the same sex positivity that they found in fanfiction, which is really like it's a breath of fresh air, I think.

Jen Prokop 32:40
Yeah, I think that's awesome. I guess I would just like one more thing I would like to turn to in terms of like, cuz I guess my, my, of the three of us, my child is the oldest so I've actually done some of this work. Like I mean, we all you should all you know, you'd be talking to your younger kids about all sorts of things about their rights to their body and all that kind of stuff, right? But, and I can put up like lots of like links and show notes about like, how to talk to your kids about sex and, but like one of the things to like, for me that's really worked and I tell people this is that I like very much like when I sit my son down and we're like talking about this stuff, like just him, like I say to him, I'm like, I get that you're embarrassed, and you don't have to say anything, just like listen to me. And then I like really make it clear. Like, I feel like this is part of my job as your parent like, I'm just doing my job right now. I'm not here to embarrass you. I'm not here to like horrify you I but this is stuff that's like really important to me, that you are that you know about consent that you are being careful that you are like watching out for your friends that you know these like warning signs of like when someone might be in a dangerous situation. right and i think that you know, it's it's something that I think of is like a real responsibilities. Like, you're not going to send your kid off to college without them knowing how to like, do their own laundry. So make sure they know how to like buy condoms, and, you know, like talk about sex. And the thing that I have told my son is over and over again is like, if you can't talk to your partner or like about what you want to do, if you can't say, like, this is what I want to try, this is what I want to do, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. Yeah, right like that. That to me is like, just like the baseline. Like you have to be able to talk to your partner. It's something you're doing together. And that to me, I think feels like you don't have to really get too into the weeds about that is but it's like, if you can't even talk about what you want to do, then maybe you're not ready to actually try doing it.

Sierra Simone 34:44
You know, I think that that actually ties really well into pegging because I think pegging is one of the acts that requires a huge amount of communication. Because if you are penetrating someone with a toy like you yourself are not having a whole lot of Like biofeedback. So what is happening inside their body? And so there's just there's no way to do it without actively communicating as you go along, like you communicate before, like, you know, just basic things like what's the weather today? Like? Is it good about weather? Is it bad weather? Like? It's like a tornado warning then like, we're not going in, but, but then it's like a constant process of communicating throughout and then after, as well to say, like, how did that feel? Was that okay? And there's just, I mean, I don't think I've ever read a pegging scene where there hasn't been some degree of communication, because I think that if you wrote something like that, it would actually be really uncomfortable like emotionally to read because it's such a, it's it just requires that in this it necessitates it.

Jen Prokop 35:56
So do we want to talk about some actual books?

Sarah MacLean 35:59
Well, actually, I want to talk About my book, if if I can go first. Um, so I was thinking I'm, I'm just really, I'm really drawn to what you both are saying about, you know, one being mature enough to be able to ask for what you want. And with, you know, with purpose and with an understanding of your own your own ability to want and, and behave in a certain way but also in this sort of sense that like trust that I'm really interested in the trust that is implicit in asking for in broaching the topic with your partner. Yeah. Because it feels like once you're actually like, in the sheets, like

you've, you've come over the

most impressive hurdle, which is like asking for it right, which is hard. Right? All right. This feels dirty, by the way. Like I feel like every word coming out of my mouth

Jen Prokop 37:00
We're gonna get we're giving the people, Sarah.

Unknown Speaker 37:04
I know.

Sarah MacLean 37:05
So

anyway,

I so anyway, my point is that I think this this issue of trust in conversation with your partner the ability to say, I want this thing I want this thing that's kinky or not kinky or whatever in our relationship and frankly, I mean sexual or otherwise, is a massive hurdle for a relationship, especially in the beginning. And I mean, especially when it comes to sex like, which is awkward and weird and funny and stupid and all those things all right, it's never as perfect as it's certainly not the beginning ever as perfect as it is to pick a page. And so my pick for this is aelia winters. I mean, it feels like she keeps coming back, but winters winters is tied score, which is the second book in her slices of pie series, which follows. It's basically an erotic series focused and centered around gaming company. But in this particular you don't have to

the heroine of this book is

the HR person at this gaming company. And here is a baker.

And we all know I love the baker.

And basically like she goes in to the bakery every morning, I really love the way this flips the script. There are a lot there are a lot of romances where like the businessman hero gets his coffee every day from right like everything about this book kind of turns these, like classic tropes on their head. But he goes into she goes into his bakery every day and she buys coffee every day and they sort of make eyes at each other and they were kind of into each other and then like suddenly they're you know, they're into each other and She is a it's a little BDSM she is in them in, she likes scenes, she likes to be a DOM. And and he has a submissive streak that he knows he has but hasn't like thoroughly explored. And I really like as you all know, like I really like this dynamic with the with the heroine as DOM. So this I knew going in like I picked up this book because I knew going in this was going to scratch an itch for me that you don't see very much but in this particular case, um she's also like she knows she's, there's nothing about this that feels prescribed in the way that erotic romance can often produce a DOM and a submissive where it's like everyone knows their own rules. Everyone knows like exactly how everything goes Dom's know everything is perfect in every way. That's just not how this goes and it lovely And there's this

moment about

halfway through the book and I think about the fact I think it was Eugen who said, like pegging doesn't happen on page one like it. Yeah, it's an act that comes out later.

Jen Prokop 40:12
Meanwhile, I said that and I'm an ally when I talk about mine, but it's gonna be okay. That's like exception that proves the rule. Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 40:20
So

Sarah MacLean 40:20
there's, they go into the two of them together, go into a sex, like a sex shop. And the woman behind the counter is like, very friendly. And she's like, welcome. And he turns to the hero turns to the heroine and says, What did you have in mind and I sort of, it feels it all feels very light. There's this new sex shop in our neighborhood that like where there's nothing like the windows are all like open to the street and like it feels like a revelation to go in there. It doesn't feel secret or sword in any way. And I like that about this representation on the in the book. That's sort of an aside. And she says, The heroine says, I thought,

um,

maybe a harness.

Like ellipses in the sentence like it's clear that she feels we're in his POV right so we can't see when we can't see what she's thinking. But like it's so clear that she's like, I know what I want but I feel weird saying it to you like I don't I'm not sure how this is going to go I'm not sure that you'll have me after this like I'm not sure we'll be in the same place anymore. I could be fucking up

and then he says

that sounds fun is it's like to try and then he touches her but just like with one finger like he just like runs a finger down her spine. And she says Yeah, I think so if your game and he says and then he bends down is like super sexy and is like, you want to peg me, Miss Parker and like it's This moment where you're like they're having this like hot, consensual moment, and it's filled with like her. And it begins with her uncertainty with like, yeah, her not being like the perfect DOM and not being able to read like, being in a place that's very authentic and real. It felt like to me. Yeah, that's awesome. Anyway, the rest of the pegging scene is great. All this is to say, like, the rest of the book is fabulous. The pegging scene is great. It's super hot. ilias really, incredibly skilled at this. And, you know, you've heard us talk about early on the podcast before, so I don't have to oversell but I wanted to really, you all said that in it. I just I found that moments. So real. So great. Great.

Jen Prokop 42:48
Yeah. Just a quick shout out. Her latest book three for all also has a pegging scene.

Sierra Simone 42:55
Oh,

Sarah MacLean 42:56
I also think I'm not gonna a good time to break are a person on Twitter who

peg someone in a different way through song?

Jen Prokop 43:15
It's honestly I feel like the most brilliant thing I've ever heard at

least at times when you are the one who like reached out, and we're like hello

Sarah MacLean 43:29
King delighted by it. Her name is Aida. And she is awesome. She's hilariously funny her Twitter handle is shut up Aida. And actually just recently she announced that she has a new job she's joined the writers room at Big Mouth the the the animated show on Netflix that is about teenagers going through puberty, which I think is like the most I'm wild about this show. It's awkward and weird and it's exactly the right representation of what puberty feels. Like, so congratulations to Ada for this but

more importantly, she is the creator

of and we will post this tweet and we will put the music in right now.

Unknown Speaker 44:19
Real quick. No, it's not gay bro. I'm just having fun, bro. I just wanna stick. But bro, I'm being truthful and make yourself visible and let me just imagine a

Unknown Speaker 44:29
bag. I got a strap.

Unknown Speaker 44:30
I gotta press pay for your ass. Hey, I've got a question to ask.

Unknown Speaker 44:35
Do you get your booty in

Unknown Speaker 44:36
the air? Maybe we could do each other's hands stop being homophobic and benya as over it's not like your homies are here. And to be clear, I know you would love it.

Unknown Speaker 44:49
You got a big

Sarah MacLean 45:03
The tweet reads unnormalized pegging at all costs

fucking fabulous rap.

And with that she had that she wrote in like a heartbeat. And my favorite line of it is, uh, I got a strap. I got a fresh peg for your ass. I got a question to ask. Do you see with your booty in the air? Maybe when we're finished, we can do each other's hair.

Jen Prokop 45:36
Anyway, let's feel blessed everybody. It's great.

Sarah MacLean 45:38
You guys my favorite song. My favorite song.

Jen Prokop 45:42
It's amazing. It really is.

Sarah MacLean 45:44
What's important here is that we all get to the point where we've asked, and that's right. enthusiastic verbal vocal consent.

Jen Prokop 45:52
There you go.

Why don't you go next, Sarah?

Sierra Simone 45:57
Yes. Okay. I My book this time is learned my lesson by Katie Roberts. And this is part of her wicked villains series. Which, if you're not on Instagram obsessively following her staging her sex scenes with Barbie dolls, then you should be. But this series follows different Disney villains and sort of kind of alternate universe. They're all in the same city, kind of squaring off against each other. And learn my lesson is about Hades, Hercules and Meg. And it kind of starts out with so Hades owns a kink club. And in in owning this kink club, he's kind of got control over the entire city. His King club is the only neutral ground in this city. And he has information on everyone and Megan's really his His right hand person like she's his submissive, but she's also a switch in the club. And she manages the day to day running of the club like she is as much the mistress of it as he is the master. But at the beginning of the book, they kind of start out in this sort of marriage and trouble place. So they've been together for you know, long time, like 10 years. And something shifted in Hades, right? And like Megan's really feeling like something's changed between them. And so the book opens there at a restaurant and it's supposed to be kind of like a nice dinner date, but it's not going that well. And then this waiter walks in, and he's just like six foot five of like, golden puppy muscle boy. And Hades is like, I want you to seduce him. And you find out later that like Hades has sort of like revenge reasons for wanting this thing to happen. But what happens between Meg and Hercules ends up being Super genuine. And then Hades and Hercules end up having this really genuine connection. And Hayes is definitely like the slither in hero who's anti hero who's kind of bent on revenge who's like, I love zero things. And then by the end of the book, he's like, Damn, and I love two things I'm

Unknown Speaker 48:16
supposed to.

Jen Prokop 48:23
Perfect. So great.

Sierra Simone 48:26
There's a really beautiful pegging scene that were made pigs Hercules while he is, is getting oral sex to Hades.

And what I love

about it is it's everything that I want out of the pegging scene, right, like there's sort of this flip of gender and who's the passive partner and all this stuff. But I also really love I don't want to say how casual It is like, because there is consent involved and there is like, planning and emotional preparation, but it's just a given the Hercules' would be open to this kind of thing. And so it really, it almost makes the default as it should be, which is that there's no stigma attached. You know, in this world that Katie is created, there is no stigma to what we want and what we need to do for ourselves in bed. And so it happens and it's this really like, coalescing scene between the three of them, like it's really the scene where you begin to see like what they could be as a threesome. And not just as an antihero, a puppet and his, you know, like, jaded submissive. And I love the whole book, and I love all the books in the series and she has more books in the series coming out. I think the next one is going to be hook and Tinkerbell. So if you're into that kind of thing, I think that's coming in late, like late winter, like early 2020.

Unknown Speaker 49:56
There you go. Keeping

Unknown Speaker 49:59
Yeah. Um,

Jen Prokop 50:00
that's really interesting because I think that it sounds like we have all found like really different like pegging examples I am going to talk about, and I'm going to preface this by saying it was written right after the election in 2016. And it has a plot that I think, like the most ridiculous part of the plot. The hardest thing to believe is not the pegging on the first date. That is easy to believe it's that this is a love story between a democrat and a Republican. Which I know and I hate myself for recommending it but I feel like I love it so much but I feel like four years ago even it kind of felt like this was a plot that could happen. He really he at the end the republican completely gives it up he like he

quits the party he understand is wrong, but Still, like I don't even know he

Sarah MacLean 51:02
legit pegs the patriarchy is what you're saying.

Jen Prokop 51:07
Yeah, it's

called life, liberty and worship by Tamsin Parker. And it was in the first rogue anthology. So it's called broke desire. And I'm going to guess that if Tamsin was writing this right now, she would write it about like, a Democrat and then like, I thought about voting for Bernie for five minutes. But didn't actually do it like, right anyway.

I voted for George, local. You know, like, when I was eight, in my local school board election, there was only one republican running. So I had

three or four years like a lot of changes what I'm trying to tell you anyway, so here's it's a great, it's a great book if we can just like read Gone away. That one part of it. So, Paige is goes every like, you know, however often to like a spinning class and the guy in front of her, she like thinks he's really cute but she notices that he wears these sort of like political t shirts and she just and then he like gets all sweaty and takes them off and she's like, Oh, I hate this guy. And but he of course it turns out is just like one of those like, sad boys who doesn't want to talk to anybody. And so he finally like sort of, you know, get up the gumption to like ask her out. But unfortunately for him he does it after she sort of overhears like another guy like being real Brody and saying something stupid and and she is just like, fine. I'll go out with you like, come to my come to like this address at 10 o'clock. And in the meantime, she actually is sort of figured out That he writes policy papers for you know, like some sort of competing, whatever wonky thing and she like does respect the way he thinks like even though she doesn't quite agree with his politics because at one time and the school board election he voted Republican. She She liked it so he like shows up and she's basically like, he's like, What's your name? And she's like, you can find out after I have my way with you and basically like, brandishes this her harness, I mean, like, and he it's really amazing. She basically thinks she's gonna like, scare him away. And it's like, the greatest line in this book is he's like,

I've never done this book.

She's, you know, she's like, and she's like, what, fuck the Democrat.

But the thing is, is that she is she takes the response. ability of like penetrating him, like of pegging him really seriously, right. So even though she's, like, furious at him, and really does almost view this as like an act of revenge in some ways for what she thinks he stands for, she is still so careful with him. And she is and he and she's really surprised that he goes for it. She's like, wait, I thought you'd essentially like run, you know, run away. And they, she, like fucks up and basically kicks him out the door. You know, it ends up being like a really like for his show. You know, sometimes I'm just really amazed at what a great author can do with a short amount of time, right. And so, in this case, one of the things I think we really get is, you know, we talked about like, trust a lot right so far and like the other books that you guys have talked about, but pegging is also about power. And I think that's something that page really knows but it Not a power that she takes lightly and she doesn't like cross her like emotional feelings of anger disappointed with him and his kind of what she thinks he stands for, with like the, the very careful like power kind of and responsibility she she has with him in the bedroom. So I think it's like a really interesting one because because there isn't that emotional, or like trust there. It really is like sort of more of a of an act where she's like, I, this is what I want to do. And he's like, yeah, I kind of want you to do it too. But I think it's really hot. I think it's real sexy. And I think it's ultimately she is able after the physical act of begging him to sort of emotionally when they sort of eventually do kind of come clean. Like really say to him like I could never be with someone who believes the things that you believe and he has really has to face like, okay, the republican party I grew up in when I voted in the school board election. No like, right?

It's not

like what I stand for either, right? I mean, he's pro choice and he and he really has to sort of face like, Oh, I this this has changed and and you're right. And so he basically agrees to do the right thing and come over to the side of rightness and goodness and pegging.

Sierra Simone 56:30
We have pegging nice, you know, I really love but that's

I really love that this is your choice because I feel like it more maybe more than Sarah and I as pics represents, like where pegging can go in romance, like outside of like latex and safe words and you know, like, really intentional power structures that are built ahead of time. Like I think that it can represent like that picking can end up being kind of like how anal play is now where it used to be really restricted where you would find anything about the butt. And now, I mean, I sometimes I'm even kind of surprised when it doesn't come up in some contemporary romances as at least like a thing that someone's thinking about. Right? And so I hope that I mean, I really hope that like this is kind of a good bellwether of like, where we can go with it. We can use it as a metaphor as shorthand, but we can also use it as like, spontaneous you know, first aid sex. Yeah.

Love that. I'd be a hell of a first date.

Unknown Speaker 57:39
very memorable.

Sarah MacLean 57:46
That would be a fun thing to try on Tinder. Like just

Unknown Speaker 57:49
we like

Sarah MacLean 57:51
surely swipe right if I will, if I can pay you on the first day.

Jen Prokop 57:57
Yeah, I mean, it would sell you lucked out. Hello. Man, you would lose a lot of Yeah, stinkers.

Sierra Simone 58:04
A lot of stinkers. I mean

Jen Prokop 58:09
you said stinkers.

Sierra Simone 58:13
We need to do you know how we did like the last limb count for ID it's like, we need to have the unintentional pun. count for Sarah.

Unknown Speaker 58:31
Sarah,

Sierra Simone 58:33
yeah, don't don't make a sale.

Jen Prokop 58:38
As we like wrap up, I would like to tell you one of the greatest Twitter accounts ever to be created is at is there pegging? And if a book has pegging in it, they will retweet it.

Sarah MacLean 58:52
So girls,

Sierra Simone 58:52
yeah.

Jen Prokop 58:56
I don't know.

But based on the followers, I know it seems highly likely that someone we know

Sarah MacLean 59:07
guys

doing the Lord's work out here.

Jen Prokop 59:12
That's right now I have got to say it was my job to like list the names of the Peggy and Caldwell and I forgot to get it. I you know, it's like notes I had when we first recorded a month ago. So I think we'll have to put it in show notes, but I do know that like, the person I communicated with, is he is reading and she is famous actually in the past month for freaking out everyone on the fucking internet by getting Colin Firth trending. Remember that? She posted? Like, like, you know, which what's your age? And which, which Darcy Do you like, and all of a sudden, like 50,000 people or something answered her tweet, and everybody else was like, why is Colin Firth trending because they thought he was dead. And I was like, you need to like use your powers for good and not evil. So,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:07
here we are. And here Here we are, here we are.

Jen Prokop 1:00:15
Any last thoughts on

pegging? Before we wrap up this very special episode?

Sarah MacLean 1:00:20
You know what, I'm just going to say that I, I'm always so fucking delighted when Sierra joins us, even though it feels it feels only been once before. It feels like it's been a lot, but it's just been once before. So if you have not, if you skip the first season, or you skip reading ID, I highly, highly recommend you listening to the mcgroove episode of this podcast is not just I mean, you'll learn the plot of margrave which is banana.

But also, there's a lot of

really thoughtful conversation about erotic romance. And there were Sierra I think both of our minds a little bit.

Jen Prokop 1:01:02
Oh my god. Yes. Well, and before Sierra goes to wait, I know I'm not sure if you're going to say this, but I'm pretty sure that she has written a book with pegging. And I was hoping he would end up by

like, talking about your book or giving you a chance to talk about your book too. I mean, hell I'm

Sierra Simone 1:01:20
I'm just such a I'm like such a retiring like shrinking violet.

Jen Prokop 1:01:26
Special guest who has written about this in her books, and somehow she is not doing the right thing by telling us about it. So that's where we're going to like, make sure we go before Well,

Sierra Simone 1:01:35
I didn't want to horn in or maybe I do, maybe morning.

Jen Prokop 1:01:42
I was like, Oh, yeah, he does spam.

Sierra Simone 1:01:51
Yes. So if you are interested in reading any of my books, or reading about pegging or reading and pegging Sienna I have novella called the moon, and it is a very kind of broody, sexy contemporary retelling of Merlin and then way and I know Jen is probably making a face right now. So, I love Even I promise even of Merlin. I love you too. Even if Merlin's not your thing, that's totally okay. Um, but it is. It's a really sort of, I really kind of wanted to explore sort of like, what a spiritual kind of feeling that pegging could generate. So, I use the the pegging scene between the two of them as sort of this final act of like, complete elemental joining, I guess between them. And I think that it's a lot of fun. But if, like, you know, magic and pegging aren't your thing I totally understand. But yes, that is called the

Sarah MacLean 1:02:59
moon. And it's a In the world of the new Camelot series

Sierra Simone 1:03:02
Yes, so I wrote a series called New Camelot. It's a trilogy and it is a contemporary retelling of Are there going to be are and Lancelot. But everyone's in love with each other, and they all have lots of like very angsty sighs amazing. And the moon takes place after the trilogy, but you don't need to read the trilogy. To understand what happens in the moon. It can it can stand on its own.

Sarah MacLean 1:03:27
Got it. And then I just want to say and you know, you can plug your ears if you want here. But if you are new to the podcast this week, and you are a car fan, we did a deep dive read of priest, we will link to that in show notes as well. Don't miss it. We love it. It is one of the transformational texts of the genre. According to me, Oh, stop.

Sierra Simone 1:03:53
So I'm plugging my ears. Now. I'm plugging, I'm plugging.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:58
There's another one.

Jen Prokop 1:04:00
Got it, man.

They got us we got to squeeze them all in before they got

Sarah MacLean 1:04:09
as much as possible.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:12
So there it is. All right. Yeah, picking that was great. That's

Unknown Speaker 1:04:17
what she said,

Sarah MacLean 1:04:19
Where can people find you online after they've decided they love

Sierra Simone 1:04:23
you?

Jen Prokop 1:04:25
And they want to read everything you've ever written?

Sierra Simone 1:04:27
Yes, you can find me on Instagram as the car Simone or on

facebook.com slash the car Simone. And then also I have a Facebook group,

which is pretty awesome. And there's a lot of people who like kind of the dirty books in there. So if that describes us, and that might be a group of people that you would like to talk about 30 books with. And I have a Twitter but I don't go on to twitter.com so don't tweet me because I

Unknown Speaker 1:04:58
guess it's just good.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:01
Yeah, it's just good. Thank you. As always we are already as I mentioned earlier in the podcast we already have a plan for Sears third Oh yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:13
Third time's a charm. Oh god.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:19
Jen what else we have

Unknown Speaker 1:05:20
to say? Please remember to

Sarah MacLean 1:05:22
like and subscribe if you're new to the podcast and you really enjoyed this this is what it's like every week. I mean not always with Sarah but with

you can subscribe and like and leave a review if you feel so inclined.

We you get buttons and other fun things

Jen Prokop 1:05:42
and there is a pegging the patriarchy button actually. And it comes it's like round and then there's like a little like side button. That's just a carrot.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:50
Yes. Yes. There's

Sierra Simone 1:05:52
like a little tiny button that goes with it. This a little carrot and sort of like the

Unknown Speaker 1:05:57
secret

Jen Prokop 1:06:00
Yeah, we could all wear it at like kiss

Sarah MacLean 1:06:02
cons in rW ways and really show and we would know.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:07
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 1:06:09
So you can do that through Jen's website links and show notes. You can buy

some gear, romance gear t shirts, and other things from my partnership with Jordan Denae links and show notes more to come in the new year in February. So coming soon, a much bigger collection. Our producer is Eric Mortensen.

Jen Prokop 1:06:30
Don't forget to vote the right way and all of your upcoming elections whether they be for the local school board or for you know, the future of American democracy. Share

Unknown Speaker 1:06:41
that to

Jen Prokop 1:06:48
2020 all we gotta do is

Unknown Speaker 1:06:49
vote every election year guys we're

Sarah MacLean 1:06:51
in. Oh my god.

This year's gonna be 40,000 years long.

Jen Prokop 1:07:01
All right, everybody have a good one

Sarah MacLean 1:07:02
you all so much?

Sierra Simone 1:07:12
Real quick

Unknown Speaker 1:07:21
let me maybe

Unknown Speaker 1:07:33
stop being homophobic and benya

Unknown Speaker 1:07:38
No, you wouldn't love it.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:46
Let me show me

Elizabeth (Voicemail) 1:08:14
Hi, this is Elizabeth, aka is reading can remember the pegging crew. I wish I was sure which one was my first romance. It was so long ago. I think it was either seadrill by Penelope nary Dark of the Moon by Karen robarge. But beloved rogue by Penelope Williamson.

What I am sure is that it was hella problematic and would not hold up to now.

So, the more as to why we asked for this to be this episode to be tagging, I've talked a lot with the members of the peddling crew about why we're so interested in things enrollment. And I think is one of the goals of writing or and or reading romance is to dismantle the patriarchy, there is no clearer metaphor for that then tagging, as per the button taking the patriarchy. And this is sort of a way of undoing all that problematic. text that we read when we were younger, especially those of us who Kingdom romance in the 80s and 90s. Like Ilana, and Broad City says, things have been terrible for women up to and including today. And 2019 has definitely been for me the year of misogyny fatigue along with a lot of other fatigue. romance provides a safe space for fantasy and wish fulfillment. And I think that heading is something that a lot of women can relate to right now in

in not never avenge sense but in a way of taking back power.

I hope that makes sense. And that will and thank you for recording this episode for us and with you guys for doing this. Thank you

Read More
full-length episode, interstitial, jen and sarah on a rant, S02 - Interstitials Jennifer Prokop full-length episode, interstitial, jen and sarah on a rant, S02 - Interstitials Jennifer Prokop

S02.02: The Alpha in Romance Novels

As we lead into Season Two, and consider the fact that some of our faves are definitely going to be problematic, we’re talking about the alpha hero this week — we’re also tackling the beta hero and the cinnamon roll, and why these archetypes largely don’t work for us. We’re talking romance heroes who changed the game for us and the genre, about how hard it is to turn the alphahole around, and how satisfying it is to watch it happen. We’re also talking the female gaze (of course) and the patriarchy (like always).

Next week, we’re digging into one of our original alphas, Derek Craven! You can find Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. It's currently $2.99 in digital everywhere, so snatch it up! 

Show Notes

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah MacLean 0:00 / #
Umm.....interstitial 2.1 is that what we call them? I don't understand.

Jennifer Prokop 0:05 / #
We're not doing point anything.

Sarah MacLean 0:08 / #
No, we're not using points anymore. That's what that we promised our producer that we would never label anything point anything. But isn't this like season, it's like 201, I don't know, there's like a TV numbering system. We're not going to use it. But it's season two, interstitial one is what it is. No more point five episodes. You guys are gonna have to pay attention to the titles now. I mean, do as we say not as we do.

Jennifer Prokop 0:38 / #
Obviously, you should just listen to everything and not even worry about it. That would be the ideal thing for all of us.

Jennifer Prokop 0:47 / #
So welcome to Fated Mates everyone. Are we rage interstitialing here Sarah?

Sarah MacLean 0:58 / #
I think we are. I'm pretty rage-y about this, and I want to have a talk.

Jennifer Prokop 1:03 / #
I know. Okay,

Sarah MacLean 1:05 / #
Maybe rage is too strong a word.

Jennifer Prokop 1:08 / #
We're unpacking.

Sarah MacLean 1:13 / #
You guys, here's where I'm at. Yesterday, I was walking in the park in Brooklyn, with my dog and my kid, and I had a thought that I didn't love about romance, and I wanted to unpack it. And so I texted Jen this thought, and she immediately called me. It was a Saturday morning at like, 10:30 / #. And she was like, it's too much to text, but these are my thoughts. And we had a whole conversation about patriarchy versus white supremacy versus anti-semitism in romance, and it was like 10:30 / # in the morning, on a Saturday, in my life, and I realized like, this is all I want out of life. Basically to have a thought about romance novels and then be able to fucking hash it out. Like, can we talk it out? And I said to Jen, we're not going to talk that out today, because we're going to talk that out many times over the next, however many episodes, but I said to Jen, recently, I really want to have a conversation about romance in 2019 and how we talk about the alpha. And like what the fuck that is, and why we are so weird about naming alphas and betas or cinnamon rolls or why we obsess over what the hero is in sort of a single word and also like why we resist so much of that character who, as I like to say, scratches an itch in fiction, but who of course we would never date in real life.

Jennifer Prokop 3:14 / #
And what this is really tied into and you and I talked have talked a lot about this, is the fantasy of romance.

Sarah MacLean 3:21 / #
Which is not just the fantasy of the romance novel, but also sort of packed into that is female fantasy, or women's fantasy or marginalized people's sexual fantasies.

Jennifer Prokop 3:38 / #
An example of this is, my favorite thing and romance. is that the heroine's underwear and bra always match.

Sarah MacLean 3:47 / #
Oh, I know. And they set the hero aflame.

Jennifer Prokop 3:52 / #
Yeah. And you know what, I don't think I actually own any matching bras and underwear.

Sarah MacLean 3:58 / #
I think one more time I wore a matching bra and underwear and Eric was like, whoa, what is this? I know. We hit the lottery today.

Jennifer Prokop 4:17 / #
One of my favorite Twitter feeds is that lingerie addict Twitter feed.

Sarah MacLean 4:20 / #
Oh, I don't know that. I'm going to subscribe to it.

Jennifer Prokop 4:23 / #
I think her name's Cora Harrington. I'm not sure. Anyway, and I'm always, these undergarments are gorgeous. I just want to admire them. And in no way in real life do I actually want to wear them. But I love them.

Sarah MacLean 4:44 / #
But also because you and I are, you know, our girls need a house man. They need to be, you know, engineered into clothing. And that sort of floofy frilly perfect underwear, it is not realistic in any way. But man, I love to read about it. I really do

Jennifer Prokop 5:11 / #
I think there's a lot of ways in which romance, and I think you and I agree on this. It's like real, but it's also fantasy. And the intersection of where those things work for some people and not for others is very fascinating to me. And I'm going to tell you, Sarah, I love an alpha. Whatever it is, we're defining that as...I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Sarah MacLean 5:36 / #
And there are very clear reasons why I love it. I mean, you do. Here's the thing, like we've talked for the last I mean, for however many for 39 episodes we talked about, well, not for half of the episodes for 19 or 20 episodes. We talked about "Mine," right? And frankly when you're reading IAD like everybody's the fucking leader of the pack. Everybody's the best, the strongest, the most powerful, the king, the whatever, the primordial. Unbeatable in every way. And these things have often been marked as alpha traits. And I guess they are.

Sarah MacLean 6:27 / #
But that's not why we love them, I don't think. It's part of it. In the immortal words of Sierra Simone, "Power is sexy. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules." And every romance novel is about power, no matter what it is, no matter what kind of hero you're writing, romance novels are about power because relationships are about power. Everybody's relationship, in real life, any relationship you have with anybody else, is about power and parity. And when you have conflict in a relationship in real life or on the page, it's about power.

Jennifer Prokop 7:11 / #
And I would say that romance then to me really fundamentally, when I read it is about figuring outhow to navigate that, how to win at that.

Sarah MacLean 7:29 / #
That's the whole ball game. The navigation of power toward parity is the whole ball game in romance. And so we've talked a lot about the history of the genre on the podcast and as we move forward in season two, we're going to talk a lot more about the history of the genre, and the books that have established themselves as sort of Cornerstone texts in romance, right? How in many of these books, we're dealing with a hero who is in those early days so impenetrable, that literally his point of view is never on the page. We're going to talk about POV much more next week when we talk about "Dreaming of You." But--I'm not talking about first person versus third person here, which is what Jen likes to yell and scream about-- I'm talking about literally the narrator and the reader don't have access to the hero's thoughts at all in these early books.

Jennifer Prokop 8:41 / #
This is like a bit of an aside, It was the first time, and I think it was "Demon Rumm" by Sandra Brown, I was like trying to figure it out, where it was 'this book is only the hero's point of view.' And I'm kind of how did I hear about this? Because there was no Twitter and there's no social media. And it must have been in the back of the book, like coming next month. But I remember that being something worth, like something worth saying like, "Hey, this is happening and it's different and new."

Sarah MacLean 9:13 / #
Yeah. Interesting. But this is the thing right like when you are looking at a hero and those early books, the early Deverauxs, early Lindseys, early McNaughts, early Garwoods, Bertrice Small, we never ever saw the hero. We never saw inside his head. And so we were really dealing in those early days-- in my mind, like, this is me like I'm putting on my scholar hat, now-- in those early days we were looking at distilled patriarchy. The hero was representative of sort of a world that was not accessible to women, not accessible to the heroine, and not accessible to read the reader. And then the heroine starts to chip away at this rigid, stony character and unlocks Alec Kincaid or any number of the Montgomerys or James Mallory or any number of the Westmoreland heroes. And suddenly we have a ball game because we're able to see that the heroine ultimately lays out the hero. To the point, where in some cases, in a McNaught that we will read this season, the hero is literally dying on a battlefield because of the heroine. Because of a promise he made to her and he will not betray that promise because he loves her. So When we see a hero broken to that extent, and then rebuilt in this image of equality, it's delicious for us as readers who subconsciously are keenly aware of our lack of power in many of these relationships.

Jennifer Prokop 11:20 / #
And I think what's really interesting about that is it was so the way I read, I came into romance as a young reader. And yet now, when I read books that are heroine-only point of view, I have to pace myself with them. I can't do it all the time. I find it too hard to get to know the hero, It feels really like a like a bold choice on the part of the author to do such a thing. Because I'm really used now to having access to all of the characters in a romantic relationship in modern Romance and when people go another way it feels like a choice, and a risky one at that. You know, it's just really hard to sell me on the other character without me being able to see inside their head. Whether that be first person or third person it doesn't matter. I'm used to that being something that I get now in romance. I don't know if you feel the same way.

Sarah MacLean 12:29 / #
Obviously this is why one of my biggest challenges. As much as you're the one who, you know, goes to the mad about first person, the challenge with first person is that sometimes you don't get the important information from the perspective of the person that you need it from. So craft-wise one of the rules that we talk about all the time when you talk about POV and romance, and you talk about writing multiple POVs, is that when you are writing a scene, you should be writing the scene in the point of view of the character who has the most to lose. Interestingly, in these early romances, or in romances where you've got a big, bad impenetrable alpha, the character who has the most to lose in those early scenes, is the heroine because she's navigating this power structure and unable to gain enough footing to get herself into a position of power where he can lose something. However, in books like, well, last year when we talked about "The Professional" part of the challenge with "The Professional" is we never saw-- part of the challenge with all three of those books-- is that we never see the moment when the heroine is leaving from the hero's point of view. We just see him go animal. He goes feral. That first one, Alex, or Alexi, what's his name? I don't even fucking remember anymore. It's like those books are out of my head but in "The Professional," we don't see him go feral. In "The Master" we see Maxim run across the field and take the bullet and he's willing to do anything for her. And so we can sort of perceive his feralness. And I'm using feral in a very specific way here. I'm using it on purpose. That is an intentional use of the word feral. And then in "The Player" we see Dimitri punch the car. He can't control himself. And we talked about it in that episode. That's a problem moment. If that happened in real life, to your friend, you would be like, red flag, get the fuck away from that guy.

Jennifer Prokop 14:55 / #
Yeah. All the flags.

Sarah MacLean 14:57 / #
Holy shit. Call the police. That guy's horrible. But when it's happening on the page in a romance novel it's safer for us to love it. And what does that mean?

Jennifer Prokop 15:09 / #
I sometimes wonder if...you have a heroine-only point of view now, or maybe then, too. Maybe as we read some of these old books we'll dig into that. If you have to make that moment-- for the hero in this case, I feel like this really over time with the alpha hero. It's like, to me it's like very tied into MF romance, where it's like a heroine.-- I wonder if you don't have to make that low moment really over the top, because we have, it's the only way to signal to the reader, just how they really feel. Like you've [the author] cut them off from them [the readers]. And so in order for us to get it, does it have to be bigger, and I don't know the answer to that.

Sarah MacLean 16:00 / #
I think it does. I was looking online and somebody was talking about some book and how the low moment, the sort of dark night of the soul moment, was over-the-top. And we hear that a lot with romance like, oh, it's so over-the-top. I get that as a criticism for my books a lot, the the climactic scene is so over-the-top. And of course it's over the top, you have to break them. They have to be crushed. Look, I love every one of my heroes. Certainly I've written heroes who I've not loved most of the book, but by the time I get to that moment, which is usually, I don't know, 90% of the way through the book, I love those heroes. I really do and I don't want them to be broken, but they have to break. Because we have to see them laid low by the idea that they have lost everything, that they have lost everything of meaning. And the reality is, and you'll never convince me otherwise, that's because all I want is to see the patriarchy destroyed. If there's anything that is is a solid metaphor for patriarchy, it's this story. The fighting for power, the arguments about power, the back and forth about that power and the ultimate dismantling of a system and a man who is representative of that system, so that he can do nothing else but be a person who's looking for equality and a mate.

Jennifer Prokop 17:48 / #
I think a lot about--so what does that really mean in the books where it satisfies?

Sarah MacLean 17:56 / #
At some point I want to talk about the fact that you shouldn't be writing this consciously. That's the problem.

Jennifer Prokop 18:08 / #
Okay, so Darrell is a big horror movie fan. And he went to see "It" this weekend.

Sarah MacLean 18:15 / #
Did he enjoy it? It looks so scary. It looks so scary.

Jennifer Prokop 18:21 / #
He I think has a really high scary threshold, because he's like, it wasn't that scary. But what was really interesting is I was asking him about the ending, because I was like, Is there a way that horror movies always end that leave you-- as the viewer in this case-- right? Like, it's like that, like, what do you need to have a satisfying romance ending I feel like is I'm always interested in these like genre questions. But the thing I think a lot about in romance is that part of the breaking of the hero is that he has to say I love you. It has to be an emotional journey where part of it is this man admitting, "I have feelings."

Sarah MacLean 19:07 / #
Yeah, I'm human.

Jennifer Prokop 19:09 / #
Yes. "I have feelings. I'm human. I have to speak these feelings out loud." It is part of every romance that it's not just enough for a woman or heroine to say I can tell he loves me by the way he acts, part of the breaking of that hero has to be: I have to say it out loud. I have to feel those feelings. And it's different when they're soft cinnamon rolls the entire time.

Sarah MacLean 19:39 / #
Here's where I'm at. And this is going to be a controversial thing. I'm a little afraid to say it but whenever. When we talk about these soft books, and there is a place for them, because like I appreciate that that's part of the fantasy, too. I have so much to say. I have so many thoughts in my head. But here's the thing. When we talk about these soft books and these soft heroes and these cinnamon rolls and how much we love a hero which wants to hold the heroine, and cook for the heroine, and clean for the heroine, and be the heroine's, you know, person. So, okay, personally, this I'm not afraid to say. These books do nothing for me. I can appreciate them on a literary level, on a romance level. I can say that's a finely crafted book, I can say that's a finely written book, this person's a skilled writer, but they do nothing for me in a primal way. And there's a sort of primalness to romance that I will never give up. You will have to pry it from me.

Jennifer Prokop 20:47 / #
I think we are alike in that way.

Sarah MacLean 20:51 / #
Yeah, I mean, we just did a podcast about Kresley Cole, come on. So there is that, but also, from a craft perspective, from an intellectual perspective, if you start the book with two characters who are both fully realized, decent people, who live in the world and are feminist and anti-racist and perfect in every way, they're all dyed in the wool democrats who love each other and can cook perfectly, then where is there to go? I appreciate that as I say those words I can understand intellectually and emotionally that that's a problematic thing. But then I sort of think to myself, and literally I'm speaking my thoughts as they are coming into my head, but like, then I think to myself, but wait a second. Is it that problematic? Because I'm not saying I want to marry Alec Kincaid. I'm not saying I want to marry whatever. I don't know. Who's my worst hero? Borne. Right? But I am saying I want to read Borne breaking. I want to read Devil freezing to death, realizing that he's fucked everything up. Spoiler alert. But my husband is not those things like my husband is a proper cinnamon roll, like, and I love him for it. So why can't I have my cake and eat it too, Jen?

Jennifer Prokop 22:37 / #
I keep coming back to the question about what the fantasy is? The fantasy for you and me is that the patriarchy can be tamed. And that's what we want to read.

Sarah MacLean 22:51 / #
More now than ever before.

Jennifer Prokop 22:54 / #
More now than ever before. Now again, I feel like it's worth us saying that I think both of us are totally aware that taking the patriarchy out of context of capitalism and racism or whatever, that's what we're doing right now. So I think for me, like you, the cinnamon roll fantasy is just not what I personally really need right now. I read about one a year and really enjoy it but I don't want to read them nonstop. And I think part of it is because that fantasy which is the help-meet fantasy, maybe, maybe that's what it is or the we're going to team up together and already be so far advanced. I don't know. Maybe it's just a different fantasy. Maybe we needed someone on who does love those books to tell us what it is that is hitting that primal need in them.

Sarah MacLean 23:59 / #
It's interesting because I had this conversation with a friend not long ago about the fact that post election, all she wants to do is read beta heroes. And also, pause, because I want to say also that I sort of instinctively loathe the, you know, heroes are all either an alpha or a beta or cinammon roll, or whatever. I hate all that discussion. Any decent writer is writing a complex hero who is many things. So, you know, there's that, and I feel I have to have said that over the course of, you know, all those Wroth Brothers. So she was basically saying I just want to read happy, bantery, joyful, fun, soft heroes. And I was like, that's fair. In the wake of the election, all I want to do is read the most bananas stories. I want every author out there taking the finger, as we discussed last season, and I think part of it is because, basically, if your book isn't about dismantling the institutions of power and privilege and hate that we are living with right now, like, why? But this is the thing, I'm also saying I appreciate that that's not fair. Does that makes sense?

Jennifer Prokop 25:37 / #
I think it's something Kelly and I talk about a lot. The work you decide to do in the world--Everybody's work is different. The work of I'm going to tackle this head on by talking about how you break down the most virulent kind of the patriarchy versus other people's work is maybe not taking the finger. Other people's work is just different. And I think that it's okay to to say that. I think what worries me and you is that I don't want to be told that loving the breaking of the alpha makes me a regressive romance reader.

Sarah MacLean 26:26 / #
Yes. Yes.

Jennifer Prokop 26:29 / #
And I feel like that's the narrative, I'm like, Look, I don't understand your work. And you don't understand my work. I don't know. That's the part I think that's hard.

Sarah MacLean 26:42 / #
I think it's a very specific narrative that we're hearing in a very specific place. So I think this is the thing that we hear about a lot on romance Twitter, but interestingly, I run reading book club on Facebook and you don't hear that so much. I think it's a conversation that is happening in very specific circles, and I think it's worthy of happening, I think that often we lose sight of the idea that women's fantasy or the fantasies of people whose gazes are not traditionally presented as fantasy, or who are not often given like a space to fantasize publicly. Policing that fantasy is a terrible, frankly, regressive way of being. My concern is that when we police fantasy, specifically the fantasy of people whose fantasies are never given a place to exist and thrive, which is what romance has always been, it's been a place for sexual fantasy of people who are not given access to sexual fantasy in the world writ large. If you're not cis, het, white, and male--- your sexual fantasies are not on billboards and in movies. But they are in romance novels. And so if we are policing that fantasy, if we're policing the, I don't know, motorcycle club or the BDSM, or the I don't know, the alpha who is broken and then rebuilt, then are we progressing as a genre? Or are we regressing as one? It should be broadening. When I'm in a reading slump, cinnamon rolls are not the answer. But like they might be the answer to someone else and like, go with God.

Jennifer Prokop 29:02 / #
And that's that's exactly I think that's it, I love that we are broadening. I think it's really more expensive as a genre. We always joke with Kate. She's like, "I don't want to read two Ps in V" and I was like, "Yeah, I do!" And I think that part of it is, I feel like there's so many more places that romance is giving us access to so many more fantasies and so many more kinds of fantasies. But my fantasy still that alpha getting broken and crying and being like, I love you. I still want that one, too. I don't want to lose that as we move forward and have so many more fantasies. I still love that old school fantasy. I do. I probably always will. Because I grew up with it. And because of where we are in the world right now.

Sarah MacLean 30:02 / #
Yeah, I mean, and what's really interesting about it is, I don't think anyone would argue that in the early days, the writers I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that most of the writers of the genre are thinking about representing the smashing of the patriarchy in that moment. I don't think. I don't think Judith McNaught was, "All right, I'm gonna write 'Whitney, My Love' and Clayton's gonna be so much of an asshole. That then like when he is broken at the end, everyone will see that it's a metaphor for women's the women's movement." You would knock me directly over if you told me that that was what Judith McNaught was thinking about when she was writing "Whitney, My Love," I think she just opened up ID and poured it onto the page and we got what we got. And so like, I think this whole conversation should be taken in a sense of like, we're doing a lot of thinking about the work of romance in a way that I think does writers a disservice sometimes. And I say this as somebody who like has gotten in her head about, "well, what is the political ramification of this story?" And suddenly you think to yourself, "well now I'm in the weeds like, now I'm frozen, because I'm terrified that I'm going to do this thing wrong. That I'm going to tell the story of smashing of patriarchy wrong or I'm going to tell the story of whatever this political thing that I want to talk and I'm going to do it wrong." Versus like ultimately, writing with conflict and with pacing and with voice and with you know, character that just like is primal. It's fearlessness.

Jennifer Prokop 32:07 / #
I want to be really clear, when we talk about it being wrong, I think the fear is always, always, always, because it's always the charge right? Hillary Clinton talked about a hero to putting a woman over a horse and riding away with her. Here we are as a genre saying like, "no, it's feminist." And yet people outside the genre are looking at it and saying, "no, it's it isn't." And that is always the push pull. I think, a really primal push pull of romances is: Is it feminist? When is it enough? When is it feminist? When is it anti-racist? When is it, when is it progressive versus when is it regressive? And I think that that question is one that maybe we can't tell until 10 or 15 or 20 years later. Who knows, but you can't convince me it's not and yet I have such a hard time explaining to you why it is. And I don't know what to do about that.

Sarah MacLean 33:14 / #
Wait, why romance is feminist?

Jennifer Prokop 33:17 / #
Yeah, I mean, I are like, Why? I mean, I don't know where the line is.

Sarah MacLean 33:25 / #
Here's my thing. For, whatever, 45 years, the genre was accused of being regressive and anti-feminist. The women's movement was moving women forward and romance novels were taking us back. And I have never ascribed to that for all the reasons that you have heard me for many, many hours of expounding on that. Now, I think what we're hearing though, is from inside the house, we're hearing not all these books are feminist and I think that is where things start to get real dicey. Because I have always said that romance is feminist in two different ways: that, On the one hand, it's feminist because there are the texts that are doing something overtly feminist on the page, the breaking down of the alpha hero, the celebration of the cinnamon roll, these kind of moments where we start to see parity as a construct in the novel, like sexual parity or, you know, whatever. Again we're talking about a very specific kind of feminism here. But then on the other hand, you have the books that are written as one-handed reads, for pure pleasure for women, or for people who, again, have never had their pleasure centered by any form of media including pornography. Then you have an entirely different realm of romance that is doing the work of like identifying basic human pleasure beyond cis het white male. And that also has value.

Jennifer Prokop 35:24 / #
Or cis het white female for that matter.

Sarah MacLean 35:27 / #
It's like cis or het or white or Yeah, it's or AND and OR.

Jennifer Prokop 35:42 / #
When we talk about HEA for all, happily everyone after, to use your language. I think the thing that romance novels have taught me foundationally, and you will never convince me that this is an important, is that you deserve ultimate love and acceptance in your relationships with other people, whether they be romantic relationships or not. Whoever that person is on the page, they deserve people in their lives to say I love you the way you are. And that is right, to me is profoundly radical. And as we see more and more romances that are not just about white ladies, and by white ladies, we see a lot of expansion about what that looks like and what that means and I love those fucking books a whole lot.

Sarah MacLean 36:38 / #
Well, it's Adriana Herrera's American Love Story series. You know, it's that sense that she wrote these, that first book "American Dreamer" or like is a male/male romance, but so much of the love on the page is from families.

Jennifer Prokop 36:57 / #
And I think that's the part that I find, as a woman in the world, the ways in which I've tried so hard to fit into boxes and make people happy and take up less space and less room. And in a romance, the people in the romance are allowed to take up however much room they fucking want to. And that's all I want o read. Except for the patriarchy. They're the ones who can't exist the way they come into the storyl

Sarah MacLean 37:33 / #
And if you think about it structurally, if you think about them as a metaphor, if you think about the general arc of the romance novel, from disperate two or three or however many disparate people come together, experience conflict, and end up in happily ever after. If you think about that as a metaphor for like a larger battle in this in society that we are all fighting every day, then, of course at the end like we're Marvel movies, right? At the end, the good guys win, which means the patriarchy doesn't win. What I worry when you start to hear from inside the romance house like well, alphas are the problem. And it's like of course alphas are the problem. That's the point. Alphas are the problem. And then we see them dismantled on the page by the opposite of an alpha, and then restructured as men worthy of love, which, frankly, I mean, if anything is a fantasy.

Jennifer Prokop 38:56 / #
I mean, god, I love my husband, right? But man it's hard sometimes.

Sarah MacLean 39:05 / #
Over the last couple of months I have fired a lot of men in my life. It's misandry hour with Sarah. I have basically like, I have eliminated a lot of men from tangential roles of my life and, and hired instead smart, savvy women. And I said to my husband the other day I was like, I'm just I'm like, slowly, like eliminating men from my life and I was like, you're lucky I'm a Kinsey two, because you'd be out man.

Jennifer Prokop 39:54 / #
I think the thing though that I I really want to talk about is how much I as a reader need conflict. So you talked about a romance now, it's like the relationships puts these people on the page, and it doesn't matter who they are, but what I need is to see that conflict changes people. Conflict changes the way we relate to each other, it changes the way we think about ourselves, and the best romance to me is always going to be rooted in conflict. I think the cinnamon roll books, the reason I don't find them as primal is because the barriers, just the conflict is lower by design, and I get that, I get that how much I value my relationships right now that are sort of lower conflict. That really speaks to me, but in romance, I still really need to see this be The Clash of the Titans.

Sarah MacLean 41:00 / #
Because ultimately, and this is where I'm going to get nerdy about books, but ultimately, isn't the purpose of literature just sort of to mirror our own struggle. I was talking to Sierra Simone about all this not long ago and she said something really, I mean, she Sierra, so of course she said something really smart-- She said something so brilliant to me. And she was basically saying, "when you strip conflict out of a romance novel, what you're basically doing is setting up two people in some sphere of perfect transparent communication and trust from the start." And so as she said to me, and this is direct quote, "it doesn't mirror pain, it doesn't mirror growth, it doesn't mirror joy". I wrote it down because I was like, that's so smart. It's now sticking to my wall. And the reality is, is that , what conflict does is say to a reader, your pain, your growth, your joy is not abnormal. You are okay. This is real, and what you are feeling is real. And look at these two people who are experiencing pain and growth and joy. And frankly, nobody's exploded your boat. So, you know if these two can make it, so can you. And that's powerful.

Jennifer Prokop 42:30 / #
That's all I want.

Sarah MacLean 42:32 / #
Also, there is an argument to be made that like if you have two very, like lovely people on the page together l I don't know. Now I'm sort of thinking like, if you two lovely people on the page together and, are you writing for people who don't have that? Maybe this is...I don't know. Maybe my privilege is showing. I don't know. Maybe my My relationship is, you know, with a person who was kind and decent to me? So why do I want to read about my own life?

Jennifer Prokop 43:07 / #
But that goes back to the idea that different people need different things out of romance and different people need different things out of the media that they consume. When I think about why my husband loves horror so much, I have this theory that it's sort of serving the same function as romance. He's just like, I want to know that people are going to either band together or escape evil.

Sarah MacLean 43:31 / #
It's like mystery novels. A mystery novel where the mystery isn't solved is not a very good mystery novel.

Jennifer Prokop 43:38 / #
I love that there's all different kinds of relationships on page. I love it. I love it even though I still want to read about conflict because you know what, even though I we joke that I like to fight, that's something I really had to learn. It's something that still scares me. And so when I see people in a romance that are in high conflict, it's like, you can do this too. It speaks to me because of who I am. 20 year old Jen did not like to fight. 20 year old Jen was afraid of fighting.

Sarah MacLean 44:15 / #
Yeah. Yeah. And I think romance novels continually model that communication. That conversation that has to happen between two people who love each other, or who are working toward loving each other. Love is messy. Relationships are messy. I mean, I've spent a lot of years in therapy, man.

Jennifer Prokop 44:45 / #
I think that's part of the reason why one of the my favorite romances now is marriage in trouble.

Sarah MacLean 44:52 / #
Isn't that funny how that works. As you age and you age into marriage, you're like marriage in trouble is so much more interesting to me now than it was. When I was 20 I cared not a bit about marriage in trouble.

Jennifer Prokop 45:05 / #
No. And that's because of who we are right now. So when we talk about what's primal or foundational, it's always going to be the intersection of who we are as people and readers, where we are in our lives now, but also what we came up through in terms of our romance history. There's always going to be things that ring that bell because it's like Julie Garland's "The Bride" for me. Always.

Sarah MacLean 45:34 / #
And that's the thing. That takes us back to that sort of alpha question, which is, so now you all know how I feel about the alpha like what I feel that alpha is actually doing. But like, that's intellectual Sarah, like that's Sarah's brain saying the alpha represents patriarchy. If I were teaching and I do teach this class, when I talk about like, who is Christian Grey? Why does he scratch the itch? Because God knows Christian Grey scratched the itch for a hundred million readers. Okay? So I don't want to talk about the quality of the writing. I don't want to talk about the story. I want to talk about any of that. All I want to talk about is why Christian Grey worked. Because he did work and he launched 1000 million billionaires.

Sarah MacLean 46:34 / #
So Christian Grey, I can intellectually tell you why Christian Grey works. He is strong. He has immense power. He's incredibly wealthy. He takes care of her. He makes sure she has food in her fridge, that her car works, that she has money in her bank account. He literally buys the business she works for to fire her boss. She can have a happy job life. And then on top of all that, he manages her orgasms to perfection. All these things cognitively work on a specific level, but so to 1000 other billionaires and so do all the Dukes, so do all the vampires. We've seen a billion rich, powerful, great in the sack kind of heroes. But what is it about that that scratches the itch? I don't know. It's just there. It's built in. But I hate saying that.

Jennifer Prokop 47:52 / #
I mean, we grew up in this society. I feel like in a society where women's financial security is always so precarious, it makes sense that he's a billionaire, but it's not that she's gonna quit working.

Sarah MacLean 48:14 / #
Oh, and he's always around. He's never at work.

Jennifer Prokop 48:18 / #
Men don't have to work in romance. Only women do.

Sarah MacLean 48:22 / #
That's a different kind of interstitial. But truthfully, there's that too. It's the fantasy of he's a billionaire and we have all this, we have immense security, but he always there emotionally for me.

Jennifer Prokop 48:37 / #
And that what he wants is for her to be self actualized.

Sarah MacLean 48:43 / #
It's just id man.

Jennifer Prokop 48:46 / #
Of course it is.

Sarah MacLean 48:48 / #
And I think that's the problem. Look, I'm talking about Christian Gray as a sort of a placeholder for 1000 other heroes. I think 50 Shades worked for very specific reasons during the actual moment in history when 50 Shades was written, but it's so primitive that sort of idea that...it feels like it goes back to like days of hunters and gatherers. There's that sort of primitive itch scratch and I don't understand. I want to be evolved but I'm not there. I love "mine." I love that moment where Alec Kincaid says, what when the question is asked what what do we call her and he says "you call her mine."

Jennifer Prokop 49:47 / #
Here's the thing I think about in terms of 50 Shades and a lot of like the old alphas. You don't really see it as much anymore, but it was certainly part of IAD and it was like part of Twilight, I would say too, is that this extraordinary person would look and instantly recognize that this was the person for them. And there's something really appealing about being seen in a crowd by someone that you think is extraordinary. Christian Grey or Edward Cullen or whoever, and that they're going to pick you out. And I don't really read in the way that I'm like, I'm the heroine. But that idea of being seen immediately as you are extraordinary too, that there is

Sarah MacLean 50:44 / #
Fated Mates.

Jennifer Prokop 50:45 / #
Of course it is. There's a reason that we read IAD together.

Sarah MacLean 50:50 / #
But I've said 1000 times I actually don't really like Fated Mates. But even the opposite of Fated Mates feels like in some ways it's enemies lovers. But even in that moment, it's the being seen moment. Enemies to lovers only works if when the first moment that they interact, it just is explosive.

Jennifer Prokop 51:16 / #
And here's my other thing and I think this is similar for us. Enemies t0 lovers, I'm going to take a 999 times over friends to lovers because it's also really high heat. You can't have enemies to lovers at a low simmer. It is always explosive. And that's it. I love conflict. I want the gas turned up under that pot. Immediately. And that's the thing, all of those books really always come with, Come with the heat. They're comin in hot, and I that's what I want.

Sarah MacLean 52:00 / #
I also think that part of the challenge here, I said this earlier, when I said you know, I hate that we distill everything down to well, is it alpha? Is it beta? What is it? Because I do think I often struggle with the perception of the alpha as being incels. As being I hate women. I'm powerfulful. Women are weak. That's, that's not a good alpha. That's not a good alpha from the start and that alpha, the I hate women, women are weak, women exists for my pleasure, women exist for me to own, like, who's ever written that romance hero?

Jennifer Prokop 52:48 / #
No, I don't like that one.

Sarah MacLean 52:50 / #
But I don't think I've ever even read a book with a hero like that.

Jennifer Prokop 52:54 / #
I think it's a I think it's a misreading. Often those original 80s heroes, and we're going to read some of these, are I was a man who was profoundly hurt and it turned me into a misogynist, because I was so hurt by a woman. And I do not want to be hurt again. I fear being hurt again. That seems different to me.

Sarah MacLean 53:20 / #
Yeah, there's that classic trope in historicals where the hero the hero has had a string of mistresses or a string of relationships that mean nothing. And invariably, like that can be perceived as that can be read as he just he's a misogynist. He doesn't care about women and he doesn't care about women's bodies or women's feelings or anything. Then he meets the one. Yeah, and she's not like other girls. In my mind, I can totally see why that's a misread, meaning why people would read that as that's alpha and I hate it. You know, it's interesting because a lot of people have been talking about Whit, the hero of "Brazen and the Beast" as being an alpha and I'm like, wait, what? Because it feels like he's really not any of the things that people missread alphas as, but he's

Jennifer Prokop 54:21 / #
He's taciturn!

Sarah MacLean 54:22 / #
He's super big. And he doesn't really talk. And yeah, when he throws a punch, it lands hard. But he also lives in aapartment filled with pillows and books by women.

Jennifer Prokop 54:35 / #
He carries candy in his pockets! Look, you're not an alpha if you have candy in your pockets all the time! My God!

Sarah MacLean 54:45 / #
He's definitely submissive in the bedroom. And so I don't even know. I just feel like, be more discerning when you're using those words.

Jennifer Prokop 54:58 / #
Let's define the Alpha then like, let's have that be the thing we end this episode with, like, what does it mean when we talk about the alpha?

Jennifer Prokop 55:09 / #
Define it. So for me, like one hallmark of it is emotionally, not like--- they're going to start the book out of touch with their feelings and afraid of their feelings.

Sarah MacLean 55:22 / #
Yeah. I mean, if we have to define it, like I think that when we define it, like when we define it from IAD perspective, or from like, we're about to read "Dreaming of You," like from Derek Craven's perspective or from any of my hero'd perspectives? Yeah, they're like, emotional,

Jennifer Prokop 55:41 / #
toddlers.

Sarah MacLean 55:41 / #
I mean, yeah, they're like I was, yeah, they're like seedlings. and they just can't, they just have no frame of reference for like, the scope of humanity that they are about to experience and when they actually experience that humanity and that emotion They're fucking done for . And uniformly my heroes are done for.

Jennifer Prokop 56:09 / #
That's all I want, Sarah.

Sarah MacLean 56:14 / #
And I don't think that I mean, like, that's not me. That's all these women who I've read my whole life,

Jennifer Prokop 56:20 / #
I've been because, I've been thinking a lot about it right, I think another thing I often associate the alpha is that they are, and you say this all the time, that they are a King. In whatever it is that they have chosen to do, they are the best at what they do. But that they are always taking care of the people under them. At least like at least in a like a financial or security way, but not in an emotional way.

Sarah MacLean 56:51 / #
But what am i catnip scenes and any romance novel is the scene where the hero is like

Sarah MacLean 56:57 / #
befuddled By his feelings. It's like he just can't. He's like I think I'm having. It's like... Things are weird. Like my tummy is weird, and My head feels weird and she said a thing and it made me feel a thing and I don't, I can't identify any of the words, I have no words for any of it. And like a his servant, or his brother, or his Mom is like, What the fuck is wrong with you-- like you're having feelings?

Jennifer Prokop 57:28 / #
Yeah, hello, this is my favorite thing. My absolute all time favorite thing, Is the person who's like, welcome to the world of feelings.

Sarah MacLean 57:38 / #
What's wrong with you?

Jennifer Prokop 57:40 / #
Worthy! I just want to talk about Derek Craven. We're gonna do it next week.

Sarah MacLean 57:45 / #
But it's the best scene in a romance novel when everybody's like, Yeah, Hi. Welcome. And it's because, it just shows what emotional toddlers they are. And there is a joy to that, there's an immense fantasy like, it is an immense fantasy for so many people, including myself, to be able to say like, I'm whatever. Like, I love my husband a whole lot, but we have these moments. Sometimes I have a moment where I'm like, "I'm sad. And I don't know why." And he's like, "I don't, what does that even mean?" And I'm like, "I just, I'm just like, I need to cry. I need to have a cry." And he's like, "what is happening right now?" And I'm like, "I just help." He just can't like patriarchy is a hell of a drug and it has ruined them too.

Sarah MacLean 58:38 / #
and like the idea that you might have a hero who ultimately discovers that those feelings and is able to interact with them is really cool. And as I say that, I think like Well, that's what a cinnamon roll does from the start. But Then what else is happening? Are they on the run? Is there a murderer?

Jennifer Prokop 59:07 / #
Of course not they're cinnamon rolls.

Sarah MacLean 59:09 / #
Oh my god. I mean, what we really should do an interstitial about cinnamon roll heroes that we love because I do have some that I really love

Jennifer Prokop 59:18 / #
I mean, I feel like there's this joke I used to make, I don't really make it anymore because I think it's probably insensitive, I used to joke like, I need a wife. I need someone who's gonna take care of me. That is a very deep rooted fantasy that I think when I read a really perfect cinamon roll book, that's how I feel. o have someone who's going to take care of me, as opposed to like me taking care of them.

Sarah MacLean 59:43 / #
It's interesting because I do think this sort of brings up and we're obviously going over because we...welcome to Fated Mates everyone. But one of the things that I think is really interesting, I have this long conversation and she's going to come back on the pod this this season. Adrianna Herrera and I were talking about trauma and romance novels as you as you guys know who were listening last year. Adriana is a trauma specialist and she came she gave us a lot of really interesting insight about MacRieve. And she was a a guest on the Bowen episode. And one of the things that we were talking about in in terms of trauma we were talking about the end of "American Love Story," and I'm not going to spoil it but there the epilogue of "American Love Story" is like this really interesting. Or one of the final scenes of "American Love Story" is what is really interesting moment of marital of like, like marital idol like relationship idol, between the two heroes, where they are both doing serious emotional work, side by side as partners. And we were talking just about how There is room for the book that is telling this modern iteration of the romance, where it's a really authentic representation of the life, the struggles that we had in life, The heroes of this particular book are an activist and the lawyer. And so, they're just, they're never, it feels like these two people just have completely different worldviews. And so, that kind of relationship-- again, though, I've always said this in the hands of a tremendous author works really well--Also, so much conflict, so much emotional internal conflict in that story, because, ultimately, at their core, they have completely different views of like how life should be and, what their purpose is. Which is cool. So actually, forget everything. I Well, first of all, don't forget everything I just said because that's, that's it's a great book and it's a great read because you have these moments of this moment of, there is so much emotional conflict to unpack there. Unlike relationships where just two people who really super like each other, and which is like fanfic and that's a whole nother story but, we should have somebody on we should see if Cat Sebastian will come on, or somebody will come on who like, is really a fanfic lover. To talk to us about the way fanfic has an informed Modern Romance.

Jennifer Prokop 1:02:33 / #
I mean, I think that's it, like we're just trying to unpack all these different things. But for both of us, this question of the alpha and what it's doing and what it's done through time and why it's still it's always going to scratch that itch for us. Like, I don't, I don't want to lose that. There's something, those stories still really speak to me.

Sarah MacLean 1:02:54 / #
I mean, to be fair, Jen, I don't think you're gonna lose that. Those stories readers, I mean, a massive swath of romance readers, love that as a story. You know, I know that because I have a career. I want Sierra to come back on and I want us to talk about fearless romances this season because I think people I think a lot of writers are real afraid to write directly into ID. And I get that. Yeah, that's a scary, that's a scary thing to do. I have been there.

Sarah MacLean 1:03:39 / #
I'm there currently, you know, with the book that I'm writing. And I think, you know, harnessing, finding fearlessness is really difficult as a writer, especially in 2019, because you don't want to do it wrong. You don't want to harm anybody. But I think there are ways for us to tell the stories that have the Sort of high conflict explosive relationships that in a way that doesn't harm but actually you know, entertains and ultimately, pleasures, readers.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04:14 / #
That's all I want Sarah.

Sarah MacLean 1:04:16 / #
I know Same, same. Well, let's leave it there for today.

Sarah MacLean 1:04:21 / #
It was last ragey I think then it could have been I think we were really put together.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04:28 / #
I agree. I mean, I'm not I'm not mad at anybody. I want everyone to get what they want and what they need out of romance. That's all.

Sarah MacLean 1:04:36 / #
I just don't want anybody to feel like they're wrong for wanting what they want. you can't be both progressive and like an alpha. That's nonsense. Go read your books. That's fine. Like, yeah, you know, and so I think I think that's where I'm at. Like, let's not let-- women's bodies are getting enough policing these days, like let's not police their minds too.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:07 / #
This is Fated Mates everybody. It's the beginning of our new season next week we have our first book, "Dreaming of you" with our favorite, with Jen and mine..?

Jennifer Prokop 1:05:25 / #
With our

Sarah MacLean 1:05:26 / #
Our. I don't know. I don't know you guys I have a copy editor for that stuff

Jennifer Prokop 1:05:30 / #
This is the very reason why possessive pronouns were created.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:33 / #
Exactly why. With our one of our very, very favorite heroes. Top Five for me for sure. Definitely top two! It's Rune and Derek Craven. Anyway, so we will be back next week with a deep dive on that. you will no doubt have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. If you've never read this book before.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:58 / #
Fine. Jen and I have a list. We're going to talk about it all. Don't worry, you'll be fine.

Jennifer Prokop 1:06:04 / #
We're gonna take care of you.

Sarah MacLean 1:06:05 / #
Yeah. Don't forget to like and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. You know, tell your friends about us and find us on Twitter at @FatedMates or on Instagram at @FatedMatesPod. What else? What else you want to say? We are both there's a romance for Raises fundraiser online. I think this is probably the last week of that. So you can head over to the link. We'll put it in show notes. I've got a manuscript critique up for auction. And Jen has a couple of really fun things including a Fated Mates book pack, which is great. So head over and bid on that. All the funds go directly to organizations working on the border. And we are really, really thrilled to be a part of that. Anyway, we love you guys, thank you so much for listening. Go read a book!

Jennifer Prokop 1:07:05 / #
See you next week with Derek Craven

Read More