Please help me welcome my latest guest, Tara Nichols. Tara’s talking about heroes and I admit I’ve often thought along the same lines. Would women in real life go for the ruff and gruff hero with the heart of gold? In real life, would he show his heart of gold? Or is this just a female fantasy played out within the covers of thousands of romance novels? ~S
With the metrosexual man on the rise, relationships built on friendships isn’t such an unusual thing these days, but I still don’t often see it in romances. The traditional dominant male hero still presides over that domain, and rightly so. He’s arrogant, stubborn, cocky, pig-headed, and sometimes a paranormal beast, yet underneath all of that lurks the good guy he doesn’t want his heroine to see. In my opinion, I doubt the typical dominant hero would truly win the heroine’s heart, but without those qualities there isn’t much struggle, conflict, er..climax (if you get my meaning).
But I’m here to herald the cheeky hero, the nurturer, the sensitive man who takes longer in the bathroom to do his hair than the typical women, the good dad, and the sweet shy guy.
He’s sexy without stepping on your toes, he listens and even hears you when you talk, he’s the guy that clutches you arm when the big hairy spider jumps out at the movies. He’s not a whimp, he’s not a loser, he’s not even second rate, but he’s harder to win over because he’s clever, and he doesn’t want to be treated poorly.
I tend to like and attract that guy.
He’ll tell you when he’s scared, and when he has doubts. He’s a human first, and a man second.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think Wolverine is smoking hot, but even while peeking coyly out from behind those foot long titanium claws, he’s worried if mutating makes him look fat.

Pictures speak a thousand words, so to illustrate my point I’ve provided a few examples,

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2008/07/01-07/lenny.jpg

http://fotos.subefotos.com/d55570d0be5bd059e7e3ea6aa4dee62fo.jpg

http://www.atlantamagazine.com/uploadedImages/Atlanta/Blogs/Shop_Girl/ryan-seacrest.jpg