you just have to find the right het romances. Some of them are absolutely fabulous at relationship dynamics, gender dynamics, power dynamics, and of course, porn. Plenty of them aren't, but Sturgeon's law applies to romances just as it applies to fanfiction.
And you can also read het fanfic, not just published romances. There is, again, Sturgeon's law, but there's good stuff out there! I cut my fannish eyeteeth on reading some pretty amazing het.
New anon here. Trufax. It really depends on the characters in the fandom, though, what kind of het writers can get away with. For example, I'd be willing to buy d/s with submissive Molly or Susan in a way I wouldn't be with Murphy. For Molly and Susan, it could easily be just another part of their sex life, but Murphy's life is so heavily built on displaying that she can be in charge and discarding any traditionally feminine trappings that a submissive Murphy would be more difficult to navigate. Not saying it couldn't be done, but you'd need to get into her headspace more, because it would be a vulnerability to her in a way it wouldn't be with other characters.
You also have to be able to escape the romance-novel pitfalls and write the characters as themselves, not archetypes. This is true in slash fiction as well (oh goodness is it ever true is slash fiction), but it's noticeable in a different way in het.
This thread is getting me all hot and bothered. :-)
For me, submissive Susan would definitely require delving into a lot of the sketchiness of Butcher's gender roles and societal gender roles about submission in general -- could totally still work, and could totally be hot, but would require that exploration.
On the other hand, I could imagine submissive Murphy without needing any of those things, because I don't think she would get into a d/s situation with a guy, without having made it abundantly clear ahead of time that she is absolutely the top in whatever pairing would be involved. So the d/s sex would be entirely *sex*, and the kink would be *kink*, and she might be bottoming but she would be topping from there. "Now we are going to have a scene, Harry, and you are going to pull my hair and smack my ass and call me names, and if you don't I will make you regret ever having been born, capisce?" And it would be lolarious how nervous that would make him.
I would really, really, really like to read that story.
There's a kink negotiation prompt on here somewhere that sounds a lot like that (and I may have been the one to post it I mean what, what are you talking about?).
I could deal with submissive Susan because I can see her being very "this is something I enjoy; whatever" about the whole thing. I can buy that one day she read something/saw something/did something that put the idea in her head, tossed it in her mental kink file and then went out for waffles. I don't see any canon for kink to be a particularly big deal for Susan, and she doesn't particularly have any skeevy "rightful place" overtones the way say, Luccio or Charity would. It has much more to do with how Susan is in-universe than how she is as a character on a meta level.
Murphy, on the other hand, has spent so much time clawing her way to the top that I'd need to see the scenario you described above, or see her actually coming to terms with the fact that yes, she does like to do this in bed and no, it doesn't make her weak. I'd also need to see the level of trust in her partner; d/s requires a fair amount of trust to begin with, but for a character like Murphy who is so heavily invested in being able to kick ass and take names, showing the side that likes to be told what to do would take a partner she was incredibly comfortable with.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Re: Fill: That Kind of Girl (3/?)
Date: 2011-02-13 05:55 am (UTC)Re: Fill: That Kind of Girl (3/?)
Date: 2011-02-13 06:07 am (UTC)Re: Fill: That Kind of Girl (3/?)
Date: 2011-02-13 06:51 am (UTC)You also have to be able to escape the romance-novel pitfalls and write the characters as themselves, not archetypes. This is true in slash fiction as well (oh goodness is it ever true is slash fiction), but it's noticeable in a different way in het.
Re: Fill: That Kind of Girl (3/?)
Date: 2011-02-13 06:59 am (UTC)For me, submissive Susan would definitely require delving into a lot of the sketchiness of Butcher's gender roles and societal gender roles about submission in general -- could totally still work, and could totally be hot, but would require that exploration.
On the other hand, I could imagine submissive Murphy without needing any of those things, because I don't think she would get into a d/s situation with a guy, without having made it abundantly clear ahead of time that she is absolutely the top in whatever pairing would be involved. So the d/s sex would be entirely *sex*, and the kink would be *kink*, and she might be bottoming but she would be topping from there. "Now we are going to have a scene, Harry, and you are going to pull my hair and smack my ass and call me names, and if you don't I will make you regret ever having been born, capisce?" And it would be lolarious how nervous that would make him.
I would really, really, really like to read that story.
Re: Fill: That Kind of Girl (3/?)
Date: 2011-02-13 07:07 am (UTC)Re: Fill: That Kind of Girl (3/?)
Date: 2011-02-13 07:24 am (UTC)Re: Fill: That Kind of Girl (3/?)
Date: 2011-02-13 07:16 am (UTC)I could deal with submissive Susan because I can see her being very "this is something I enjoy; whatever" about the whole thing. I can buy that one day she read something/saw something/did something that put the idea in her head, tossed it in her mental kink file and then went out for waffles. I don't see any canon for kink to be a particularly big deal for Susan, and she doesn't particularly have any skeevy "rightful place" overtones the way say, Luccio or Charity would. It has much more to do with how Susan is in-universe than how she is as a character on a meta level.
Murphy, on the other hand, has spent so much time clawing her way to the top that I'd need to see the scenario you described above, or see her actually coming to terms with the fact that yes, she does like to do this in bed and no, it doesn't make her weak. I'd also need to see the level of trust in her partner; d/s requires a fair amount of trust to begin with, but for a character like Murphy who is so heavily invested in being able to kick ass and take names, showing the side that likes to be told what to do would take a partner she was incredibly comfortable with.