Homme Vitale, another new archetype

[Stella_Omega]

I was struck by this exchange ,in my femme vitale thread;

Does the femme vitale have a male counterpart?

Not a walk-on or cameo role. This is a main character.

Proactive. Self-respecting, and his partner respects him.

The alpha in the relationship. Makes the rules and his partner follows them. Does not dump the partner when they get tiresome, but straightens them out.

Not a shining light of purity . He gets laid.

Makes it all the way to the final credits.

Off the top of my head, this is the most common character in Western fiction, film, etc., to the degree that if you simply say "hero" or "protagonist," this is the default assumption.

Varian simply took my laundry list for my femme vitale concept and changed the pronouns to masculine. And yes, that shore do sound familiar pardner!

But what I notice, is the way the word "Partner" changes meaning. When you are talking about a woman's partner, a host of assumptions come to mind dealing with intimacy, mutuality, domesticity. These connotations aren't much there, by default, when you speak of a man's partner. When I read my laundry list, and I hear the theme to "The Good The Bad and The Ugly" in my head-- yes, all my words make sense in that context, except-- not. That hero is not going to include a woman as a partner. That's his horse!

Now, there are many masculine characters who treat their women well-- aren't there? If I take that same list, and change partner to something more specific;
Not a walk-on or cameo role. This is a main character.

Proactive. Self-respecting, and his lover respects him.

The Alpha in the relationship. Makes the rules and his lover follows them.

Does not dump the lover when they get tiresome, but straightens them out.

Does not tear his lover apart, but builds them up. (I took this took for granted in the femme list and how awful is it, that I don't take it for granted in the homme list)

Not a shining light of purity . He gets laid.

Makes it all the way to the final credits.[/I]

Does this sound like an unusual man, literarily speaking? I can hardly think so. Got examples, names, a character of your own?

 

[slyc_willie]

I was wondering if you might get to this.

When I first started seeing Pure's thread, and especially upon reading your posts, Stella, I was reminded of a book I read a good dozen-plus years ago, written by Paul Verhoeven (director of Basic Instinct). It was called Homme Fatale. The premise is that of a young woman, who had once appeared in a pornographic film, who is so enamored of a particular man that she does anything and everything to get him. Their relationship is filled with mystery and sexual tension (which she relieves quite often and more satisfactorily than any woman he had known before), before he discovers her psychotic tendencies.

Throughout the novel, there is the theme that the Homme Fatale is more like an Homme Vitale. He tries to help her, tries to find a way to connect with her. Alas, she is more smitten with him as an ideal, an image, a fantasy object, and less as a real man.

It's not a bad read.

 

[Vermilion]

I'd actually say that this was a more common character in my writing than the femme Vitale

I'm a little shocked to realsie it, as I would have assumed that my writing was very female-led, but so many of my female characters are led through the story by the lead male... perhaps that has more to do with what turns me on in a sexual aspect, as the strongly traditional roles of masculine and feminine appeal to me as very sexy and I like my women to be seduced, but now I'm feeling a bit embarrassed that I don't have more strong characters.

Perhaps that should be my next challenge - to write a femme vitale The story I'm working on has the potential to become this, maybe I'll see if I can do it.

Thanks for the kick up the arse, Stella
xx
V

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'd actually say that this was a more common character in my writing than the femme Vitale

I'm a little shocked to realsie it, as I would have assumed that my writing was very female-led, but so many of my female characters are led through the story by the lead male... perhaps that has more to do with what turns me on in a sexual aspect, as the strongly traditional roles of masculine and feminine appeal to me as very sexy and I like my women to be seduced, but now I'm feeling a bit embarrassed that I don't have more strong characters.

Perhaps that should be my next challenge - to write a femme vitale The story I'm working on has the potential to become this, maybe I'll see if I can do it.

Thanks for the kick up the arse, Stella
xx
V

Wait a minute! Why should you be embarrassed that traditional masculine and feminine sex roles turn you on? Is that a sin? Is that pathological or something?

This homme vitale sounds to me like nothing more than a Liberated Man, and with all due respect, he might be a swell guy but I don't see how incorporating him into my work is going to help me write dramatic fiction. With an homme vitale and a woman, where's the conflict between them going to come from? I'm writing hot stories here, not polemics on how to have successful relationships. He sounds to me like the kind of guy the woman's going to kiss goodbye as she goes out to see her lover.

 

[EmeliaBell]

Wait a minute! Why should you be embarrassed that traditional masculine and feminine sex roles turn you on? Is that a sin? Is that pathological or something?

This homme vitale sounds to me like nothing more than a Liberated Man, and with all due respect, he might be a swell guy but I don't see how incorporating him into my work is going to help me write dramatic fiction. With an homme vitale and a woman, where's the conflict between them going to come from? I'm writing hot stories here, not polemics on how to have successful relationships. He sounds to me like the kind of guy the woman's going to kiss goodbye as she goes out to see her lover.

Only embarrassed that I have never written a strong and supportive woman, when that is precisely what I'd consider myself to be -- all my women seem to be wither bitches or ingenues...

~E~

 

[EmeliaBell]

Wait a minute! Why should you be embarrassed that traditional masculine and feminine sex roles turn you on? Is that a sin? Is that pathological or something?

This homme vitale sounds to me like nothing more than a Liberated Man, and with all due respect, he might be a swell guy but I don't see how incorporating him into my work is going to help me write dramatic fiction. With an homme vitale and a woman, where's the conflict between them going to come from? I'm writing hot stories here, not polemics on how to have successful relationships. He sounds to me like the kind of guy the woman's going to kiss goodbye as she goes out to see her lover.

Sorry - I didn;t actually respond to your post. I use the homme vitale type quite often and I find that he tends to be quite a sexy man. The conflict comes from the heroines inhibitions or suppositions. A homme vitale type would seduce and corrupt her, teaching her the value and power of her own sexuality. It's pretty damn sexy, believe me.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Only embarrassed that I have never written a strong and supportive woman, when that is precisely what I'd consider myself to be -- all my women seem to be wither bitches or ingenues...

~E~

Well of course! We're writing porn; fantasy. We're not writing idealism. It's like apologizing for your dreams.

God! Has it come to the point where we're embarrassed by our own dreams?

 

[EmeliaBell]

Well of course! We're writing porn; fantasy. We're not writing idealism. It's like apologizing for your dreams.

God! Has it come to the point where we're embarrassed by our own dreams?

No. Embarrassed that I'm writing within such a narrow field when I should be pushing myself to explore new characters --especially since I'm so early on in my writing career.

~E~

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Sorry - I didn;t actually respond to your post. I use the homme vitale type quite often and I find that he tends to be quite a sexy man. The conflict comes from the heroines inhibitions or suppositions. A homme vitale type would seduce and corrupt her, teaching her the value and power of her own sexuality. It's pretty damn sexy, believe me.

That's exactly what I write. But I don't consider him to be any special kind of archetype. Just a man.

I get in trouble for assuming women have inhibitions.==>

 

[EmeliaBell]

That's exactly what I write. But I don't consider him to be any special kind of archetype. Just a man.

I get in trouble for assuming women have inhibitions.

Sure they do, but so do men. Nearly everybody has some inhibitions, it's just that some peoples' start at oral sex and others start at menage a neuf with anal fisting

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Interesting... I think I know now, why I like writing erotica...because it lends itself to writing in archetype... even "type" (which is a "dirty" word - ha - in our liberated culture, I think...)

In "regular" fiction, the ambiguous messiness of life can (and should) be explored.

But erotica and sex lends itself to dichotomy. I like that. I miss it (in life, too!) It's a little more simple, but in some ways, deeper and more complex, that "realistic" sorts of fiction. The tension of the masculine and feminine (not necessarily male/female... just the archetypes) is the true tension of the opposites.

It's hot. We're drawn to it, like moths to that proverbial flame. We long for that light, even if it means death.

Ah, Kali. She knew what she wanted.

 

[neonlyte]

That's exactly what I write. But I don't consider him to be any special kind of archetype. Just a man.

I get in trouble for assuming women have inhibitions.==>

... and just a woman. Porn writers may be different but I'm willing to bet their thoughts turn to sex just a wee bit more than the average Joe or Julia.

I sat on a train for three hours yesterday, one carriage short of the buffet car, with a trail of males and females up and down the aisle. Everyone looked, the guys at the gals, the gals at the guys... what the fuck else do you do on a train?
I love the coy turning away when they know someone is looking. Can't risk locking eyes, not in a crowded train. Let's not beat about the bush, sitting... eyes are at groin level, that's where the gals look, then up. The guys go tits first, then down. I bet they weren't wondering if they were science majors

There are no archetypes, just characters writ large. It was always thus.

I reckon there are about dozen basic types of both sexes, for me largely defined by facial shape... but that's just me. Everything else is in the character, for writers, and in the upbringing in real life. Real life conditions response. Writers and historians condition archetypes.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Doc, take it easy, you are reading an awful lot into this.

YOU don't have to write anything but what you do write. Since so many of our conversations lately have included appeals to the archetypes, I want to enlarge our store of archetypes. You might not find them appealing-- but someone else might.

I have a triad in one story I'm writing. it includes a bottom male a femme vital and an homme vitale, and I'm very glad to have invented a shorthand reference for each of them! The bottom male is something like a pet-- a pet tiger, maybe. Takes a lot of tact and demands a lot of attention. Trust me, there's plenty of tension.

Neon, I totally agree with your comment that "Writers and historians condition archetypes." But remember historians are conditioned by the archetypes they have to hand. That's why new concepts are so damn important. I'm tired of the reactive female characters, and I'm proposing a proactive one. I'm tired of the Strong, Silent male characters and I'm proposing a expressive, engaged man, and I'm saying that we can begin to make these people seem possible, then they will become possible in real life. labels really make a difference in the way people think.

 

[neonlyte]

Neon, I totally agree with your comment that "Writers and historians condition archetypes." But remember historians are conditioned by the archetypes they have to hand. That's why new concepts are so damn important. I'm tired of the reactive female characters, and I'm proposing a proactive one. I'm tired of the Strong, Silent male characters and I'm proposing a expressive, engaged man, and I'm saying that we can begin to make these people seem possible, then they will become possible in real life. labels really make a difference in the way people think.

I love ambition

Historical archetypes were victors, imagine if Hitler had won the war.

I'd guess you're twenty years ahead of the game, minimum. There are few male icons worth 'writing up'. Men are generally too busy paying lip service to 'equality' and repairing the 'glass ceiling' with velcro tape to be existentialist in the current socio-political climate. That doesn't mean they can't be re-invented, but a new mould is needed.

In so much as I want story and sex in my writing, I need my males to be unencumbered by career with the freedom to make choices unaffected by the mundane concerns of 'making a living'. No real change there but I tend to counterbalance them with strong independent women. Both have flaws or there wouldn't be a story. Nothing really new there.

I find it hard to conceive of a single strong pratagonist of either sex. I'm not sure I could write it without making obvious a subservient sex.

 

[Stella_Omega]

twenty years... yeah, sounds about right.

But what's at the end of that twenty years will only happen after my twenty years of putting these ideas out there, and it's no real hardship anyways, if I'm writing qwhat gets me wet.

I find it hard to conceive of a single strong pratagonist of either sex. I'm not sure I could write it without making obvious a subservient sex.

No, and you dont have to if your tastes don't run that way, of course!

But let's call them, just for now, "alpha" and "beta" partners, okay? These characters need not represent all women and all men.... just the ones that happen to be in this pairing at this time.

 

[rgraham666]

I'm feeling a severe case of Centipede's Dilemma coming on.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm feeling a severe case of Centipede's Dilemma coming on.

Yeah. Me too. I'm recusing myself. Totally befuddled.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I get in trouble for assuming women have inhibitions.==>

I dunno, Doc, I get pissed of when you act as if all women must have inhibitions. Sometimes I think you get pissed off at women who don't have them. It's, forgive me, an all-too-typical attitude.

But this thread is supposed to be about male characters, not female...

Vermilion,might your men be Hommes vital?

 

[sweetness6280]

I'm feeling a severe case of Centipede's Dilemma coming on.

Yeah. Me too. I'm recusing myself. Totally befuddled.

Too late... I've already tripped myself up.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The problem in the literary world, as I see it, and in television as well, is that what passes for writers are so deeply into trying to keep up with fashion that they denegrate decent men. If you look at TV, men are either fools or bastards of one stripe or another. For example, Mama is addicted to that hospital soap opera with the limping, drug addicted asshole of a doctor. Who'd want to have someone like him around?

As Stella pointed out, Gomez Addams was the last 'dad' to get any respect in the media. There was a short period right after 9/11 when a few pundits began to admit that there were a lot of men out there like the fallen firemen who deserved respect. They allowed as perhaps the current media had been too cynical. I think it lasted all of three months and it was back to bashing and mocking again.

Male architypes of the strong, sexual, supportive sort only exist in RL, these days. The media is too PC.

 

[Liar]

I just realized that most of my stories are about people with insecurities, issues and faults, who get influenced by other strong and vital people like the archetypes Stella describe.

But the thing is, I can't keep them that damn virtuous. Because it's a thin line between an always fair, steady, confident and right character, a vir bonus to use an old Roman term, and a Demi-god cliché. So they end up being all that mainly in the eyes of the protagonist, and more complex once you poke them with a stick.

They too need flaws, conflict, weakness, immaturity, something to keep them from becoming too 2D. At least when I write them. And then they cease to bem, the way I understand it, "vitale".

So my question is, is Vitale (Homme or Femme) just an ideal, the extemity of "always in control". Or can they too be, to some degree, a little fucked up with the rest of us?

 

[Stella_Omega]

The problem in the literary world, as I see it, and in television as well, is that what passes for writers are so deeply into trying to keep up with fashion that they denegrate decent men. If you look at TV, men are either fools or bastards of one stripe or another. For example, Mama is addicted to that hospital soap opera with the limping, drug addicted asshole of a doctor. Who'd want to have someone like him around?

As Stella pointed out, Gomez Addams was the last 'dad' to get any respect in the media. There was a short period right after 9/11 when a few pundits began to admit that there were a lot of men out there like the fallen firemen who deserved respect. They allowed as perhaps the current media had been too cynical. I think it lasted all of three months and it was back to bashing and mocking again.

Male architypes of the strong, sexual, supportive sort only exist in RL, these days. The media is too PC.

They do exist in some newer sci-fi shows, I think-- minus sex, in most cases.

You ever only get two out of three.

 

[sweetness6280]

I just realized that most of my stories are about people with insecurities, issues and faults, who get influenced by other strong and vital people like the archetypes Stella describe.

But the thing is, I can't keep them that damn virtuous. Because it's a thin line between an always fair, steady, confident and right character, a vir bonus to use an old Roman term, and a Demi-god cliché. So they end up being all that mainly in the eyes of the protagonist, and more complex once you poke them with a stick.

They too need flaws, conflict, weakness, immaturity, something to keep them from becoming too 2D. At least when I write them. And then they cease to bem, the way I understand it, "vitale".

So my question is, is Vitale (Homme or Femme) just an ideal, the extemity of "always in control". Or can they too be, to some degree, a little fucked up with the rest of us?

An archetype is, by definition, just a model or generalization. Very few characters, none that I remember, actually embody all the traits of their archetype. To do so would make them less than human, more like a caricature of life.

Characters are much more interesting when they have flaws. How many people want to read, see, or listen to characters without conflict? It's their growth, or lack of it, through a conflict that defines them.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I just realized that most of my stories are about people with insecurities, issues and faults, who get influenced by other strong and vital people like the archetypes Stella describe.

But the thing is, I can't keep them that damn virtuous. Because it's a thin line between an always fair, steady, confident and right character, a vir bonus to use an old Roman term, and a Demi-god cliché. So they end up being all that mainly in the eyes of the protagonist, and more complex once you poke them with a stick.

They too need flaws, conflict, weakness, immaturity, something to keep them from becoming too 2D. At least when I write them. And then they cease to bem, the way I understand it, "vitale".

So my question is, is Vitale (Homme or Femme) just an ideal, the extemity of "always in control". Or can they too be, to some degree, a little fucked up with the rest of us?

Oh yes, these are idealised roles-- something our characters might wish to be or, as you point out, another character might wish on them.

They might be more or less vital in one direction or another, because no one can be perfectly an ideal-- macho, or housewifely, or any other archetype out there. At least not for more than a couple days...

(An unsuccessful femme fatale would be a fun thing to write, wouldn't she-- that just couldn't go through with her victim's final ruin? She ends up a happy suburban housewife... )

 

[Liar]

Ah. Then I bow out. I'm way too prone to use character moulds as indeed moulds, instead of as inspiration. If I have, for instance a pollyanna in mind, it will become the most pollyanna pollyanna in the history of pollyannas.

The only approach that works for me is way too analog for that. I'll end up with the same kind of characters leaning towards an archetype or the other, but mainly because my, ahem, ink blots resemble them.

Carry on.