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This week’s House Guest is Victoria Blisse, who we heard from earlier this week in the Wednesday Words slot with an excerpt from her vampire romance, The Point.
Today, she’s going to talk about one of my favourite things – beautiful feminine curves.
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When you hear guys talking about expensive sports cars you always hear them drooling about their beautiful curves well when I write, I like to wax lyrical about curves too but I don’t often mention cars.
Hello, I am Victoria Blisse and like to write about ample bosoms, shapely hips and big bottoms. I love writing about real women. Women who have wobbly bits they’re not proud of, cellulite, the odd wrinkle or stretch mark. I got heartily sick of reading romance stories about stick thin girls. You know the type. They’re geeky, shy and apparently unattractive to the opposite sex but the moment they whip off their glasses and shake out their hair they’re ever guy’s wet dream with subtle curves and perky tits to match. I am not that kind of woman and I wanted to write stories about characters like me because we curvy girls deserve love and lust as much as anyone else.
It makes me sad when I see advertising hoardings covered in beautiful women quite clearly airbrushed to remove all their alleged imperfections. It makes me feel inadequate sometimes because I am never ever going to look like the model on the bill board, heck if she’s had to be airbrushed I don’t know what computer hi jinks they’d have to do to make me look presentable! But not just that, it makes me feel sorry for the poor girl who is obviously stunning to start with but still has her image digitally played with before it can be used. How awful must that make a person feel? It’s just as bad for guys these days, they’re coming under similar pressures to look toned, tanned and well groomed as we women have experienced for many years.
Well, I think it’s time that we reject the media image which is so unobtainable it’s unreal. I mean if Lara Croft really existed she’d keep toppling over with the weight of her massive, pert boobs! No, we need to be looking for the good, the sexy in ourselves just the way we are. We’ll never be perfect and that shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing. Imperfections are what make us different from each other. They’re the things that mark us out as an individual and it’s about time we started to champion diversity and the love of our wobbly bits.
I like to think I’m doing my bit with the characters in my stories. How does the physical description of a book character impact your view of them? Do you prefer the body perfect hero/heroine or do you prefer characters with imperfections like I do? I’d be very interested to hear your views.
Thanks Marc, I hope to be back here again in the future.
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Vic is a northern lass, hailing from sunny Manchester. Check out her website, facebook, facebook fan page (cool, I’ll have to get one of those, not that I have any fans) and twitter. Lots of lovely ways to contact her.
When I was putting this post together last night, I went on the hunt for a suitable picture to accompany it. What I wanted was something that showed off the lovely Kirstie Allsop's lovely curves, but all the pics I could find of her, she was in clothes that made her look shapeless. Shame that, cause... you know...
ReplyDeleteKirstie is one of the few women in the media today with a real woman's shape. She is, in a word, delicious. A man could easily get lost in her curves.
As you can tell, I'm a bit of a fan of the feminine form and for me, with one notable exception in the shape of Kiera Knightly who....
Sorry, what was i saying? Oh, yeah, I remember.
I've always found myself attracted to women with some shape to them. I don't think we celebrate 'real' women enough in our society.
As for the picture, I couldn't find one of Kirstie where she wasn't wearing a big thick coat, or any nice ones of Amanda Lamb (Cor!) so i settled for this shot from one of Gok Wan's "How to Look Good Naked" shoots. Now, there's a man championing 'real' women. Long may he reign.
Excellent post, Vic. Thank you.
Kirstie is a really good looking woman, I love her figure! It's a shame we curvy girls all have this urge to cover up and buy clothes 2 sizes too big to be 'comfortable'.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me have my say, it's been a pleasure to visit your virtual home, you've been a great host.
How does the physical description impact my view? Honestly, I prefer that the story not call attention to it. I'm going to superimpose my own mental image of the character anyway. So the description only matters if it's a plot or other important element of the story.
ReplyDeleteThat said, poorly written porn can't seem to escape giving physical descriptions, usually in a non-natural way in the first page. So that may be part of my turn-off.
Hello, Victoria,
ReplyDeleteI'm bisexual (although not actively so, alas!) and I must say I'm very attracted to curvy women. Actually, when it comes to both real women and characters, what draws me is not the specific physical attributes but the way that the person's physical appearance projects her (or his) personality and fundamental nature. So, I'm quite comfortable with a story that provides no more than hints of how a character looks. Those hints, though, should focus on distinctive details -- eyebrows that arch mockingly, or a dimple that appears when the character smiles, or dark-rimmed glasses that suggest a studious or analytical nature.
As you point out, a huge part of a woman's self image revolves around her body shape. Thus, mentioning a character's ample bosom or hips may be important, not just to establish a picture in the reader's mind but also to provide some clues about how she feels about herself and what is important to her.
I find that many romances spend way too much time and words on physical description, though. It's not just a problem one finds in porn.
Best,
Lisabet