I have noticed a new trend that I’m not sure I like, the ‘hero’ of the story being a man whore. Now before we go further I’ll explain that to me the difference between someone sexually active, aggressive, and casual and a ‘man whore or slut’ is respect. Respect for themselves and respect for their partners.

So a while back I was reading the beginnings of several books, which I didn’t bother to finish, and each of them the hero was slutty. I don’t care about abs, tats, and broad shoulders when I’m worried about STIs, seriously yuck! And the heroine is either a virgin or has only had sex with one other person and that was a long-term relationship. This isn’t horrid, but I also noticed these similarities:

1. The hero does whatever he does with a girl draped all over him and groping him. Usually as this is described, the focus is on the girl, and the hero almost disappears from the text. “She sucked on his ear and ground herself into him.” Notice that he doesn’t move or respond at all? Weird.

2. The heroine refers to the busty blond (jealous much fellow authors) wrapped around the hero as a slut, whore, cheap, easy, skank. Ummm, now I don’t like your heroine. I feel bad for people with such low self-esteem that they treat themselves with such little respect, but calling them a dirty skank, just no.

3. There is a TON of drinking, like eight shots in a night. This might be personal to me, but I can’t relate or connect to this kind of behavior.

4. The goody-goody heroine is ‘forced’ by her wild best friend into drinking, wearing a tight sexy outfit she feels uncomfortable in but that the ‘skank’ from earlier would have worn, and going into the bar in the first place.

5. The hero is willing to give up his bacchanalian life for her, to be with her, because no other woman has made him feel like this. Really? You’ve shagged hundreds of ‘bar bunnies,’ and this one woman will change all of that with the touch of her hand?

6. CONDOMS!!! Hello, not only should you be mentioning and having your characters use condoms BUT I’m not touching someone like that until he’s had a Silkwood shower and been tested by a doctor!

Now so we are clear, I’m not a prude, I’ve had my fun and wild days. But slamming other woman because you’re jealous and want to be draped all over the guy they’re wrapped around, total lack of respect for self and partners, not talking about safe sex, and the heroine being ‘forced’ into things by her best friend, just makes me want to hurl. I can’t connect with the characters, I don’t like them, I don’t find them interesting, and I wouldn’t want to be them.

So what do you think? Have you run into the man whore as the prince charming yet? Is it just me? I mean, I can’t like all tropes, but do you love the man whore in place of prince charming?