Frillies For Men

I was having an innocent meander, as one does, through some book samples the other day.  It was late at night, I admit, tiredness was creeping over me, when I was jolted awake.

The passage was from a young-ish author being put in print by a well-known publisher.  It started, the excerpt that I saw, with beautifully flowing prose using words that blossomed from a well-honed intellect.

And then it said:

“....his adoring tumescence.”

Oh, no.  Please, no.

He has, indubitably, the right to use such words as he sees fit and I, for one, would not argue against the exclusion of coarse and vulgar words and phrases, I am, possibly, old and old-fashioned enough to find the use of foul language uncomfortable in mixed company and with youth.  Yes, yes, I am aware that youths know these words and they use them amongst themselves on the grand scale but that does not preclude my personal embarrassment at using them in such company.

But.

There’s always a ’but’.

‘Waxing lyrical’, ‘poetic license’, ‘descriptive allegories’, are one thing but ‘adoring tumescence’?  Too much.

Let me make myself just a shade clearer.

I am ‘knocking’ neither his writing nor his style.  Beautiful.  No argument.  The man is obviously well educated and of great cerebral capacity.

No.  The problem I have is that men are men.  Women, as has often been noted, are different.  They are, well, women.

You ask any single woman and she will tell you that she is looking for someone warm, compassionate, caring.  Someone who has a sense of humour with whom she can chat away the wee hours in a stimulating and intelligent manner.  And who has broad shoulders and strength.

It always comes down to that in the end.  Women want a strong, decisive man.  [I shall write more on this in my next ‘Blog’]

Often you will see—and you know someone like this for certain, women who are beaten by their husbands.

“Leave him!”  People, friends, will say.

“Oh, I can’t, can I?  I loves ‘im, Ducks.  What would he do wiv aat me?  ‘E’d be lawst, wudden ‘e?”

Before I am deluged with comments about how well you treat your wife or girlfriend; how well your husband or boyfriend treats you, let me just say that I am well aware that there are a host of women out there who are perfectly happy with their lot—divorce figures notwithstanding, and that, equally, there are lots of husbands who are brutalised by their wives.

The point is that even (especially?) women authors have heroes who are strong and decisive.  They are men.

Now.

Men, real men, get lust-filled ‘rocko’s’, ‘hard-ons’, ‘woody’s’.  Erections, at least.  Men talk about six inches of mutton rivet, the pork sword, todgers, they do not get twee about it.  Even in front of women they don’t.  Never.  Ever.

I admit there are words in my novels that are less than polite but these stories are aimed at an adult audience.  I write in a ‘manly’ manner (I hope).  I do not use frilly sentences and pretty phrasing.  Perhaps I should, but I cannot.

Men are men and write like men—or should.  Women are women and write like women—or should.

“Adoring tumescence”?

Good grief!