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(No More) Mr. Nice Guy

On the (rare, lately) occasions when my children take long enough naps for me to post on this blog, I try to keep it controversy- and negativity-free. Plenty of both in the world already, that’s how I look at it. But today–today I’m going to step outside that. Because it happened again the other day.

I was in the library, browsing through the “romance” section, because I like a good guaranteed happily-ever-after kind of story now and again. And in flipping through the first pages of one of the books on the shelf, I found a story whose first chapter consisted of the male protagonist taking the female protagonist’s virginity with absolutely no thought of commitment, love, or even birth control–then calling her various vicious names afterwords and making her cry. Because, you know, he is such a hard-edged alpha-male type.

Nor is this an isolated occurrence. I’ve read books in the “romance” genre that include–as part of the courtship between the hero and heroine–emotional abuse, physical violence, and situations that border on rape.

Now, since these are guaranteed happily-ever-after romance novels, I have no doubt that if I picked them up from where they land after I hurl them across the room, I would find the same hero and heroine falling into each others’ arms in the final pages. But for me, that just makes it worse. Abusive behavior does not deserve to be glamorized as some sort of romantic ideal.

I mean, if, God forbid, twenty years down the road, one of my daughters came home with a story like the one I just repeated, would I tell her, ‘Oh, sweetie, he must be The One’? No. I am, in general, a peace loving, violence-is-not-the-answer kind of a girl. But if (God forbid) one of my girls came home with a story like that, I would be sending my husband out for a SHOTGUN.

But they’re just stories, you may say. Fiction. Just don’t read them if they offend you. And you’d be right. Absolutely, you’d be right. Except–

Except that the other day my husband was reading an on-line news site and chanced to click on an advice column article. A man had written in with a problem: he couldn’t seem to sustain a long-term relationship. Women were always breaking up with him. Ah, the advice columnist said. You’re treating the women you date too nicely. Women don’t like nice guys. You need to be more of a jerk.

Now, beyond agreeing with my husband that this advice columnist was a *word he would never have used had either of our girls been in earshot*, I didn’t really think too much of it. Just an isolated occurrence, right?

Not two days later, one of the lead stories in a major newspaper was an interview with a guy who runs a dating service for men that centers around teaching them to be less nice to the women they date. Because, he explained, women don’t like nice guys.

Now, let me be clear. Am I suggesting that this advice columnist, dating service, or romance novels are cause-and-effect directly responsible for each other–or for that matter for domestic violence and abuse?

No. I’m not. All I am saying is that words have power. Stories have power. Let’s–please–be mindful of the stories we read, write, and believe in. Please? These two precious girls of mine need to grow up in a world where they can find men who are as nice as their Daddy is.

This entry was posted Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “(No More) Mr. Nice Guy”

1. Sarah Says:
   May 30th, 2010 at 3:44 pm

   This is a great post. One of my goals in raising my sons was to raise someone I would have wanted to marry . . .

   
   

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