The link between Vampire books and BDSM Erotic Romance

Many women who have been loving the paranormal romance genre since Twilight and True Blood (Based on the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris) are turning to contemporary romance with ‘alpha males’ and BDSM Romance since Fifty Shades of Grey came out.

This can work both ways. If you read Fifty Shades of Grey, and all of the other suggestions on this blog about books like Fifty Shades of Grey, you may be surprised to like the paranormal romance genre more than you thought. Why?

Let’s start with the Twilight/Fifty Shades of Grey comparison. We know that Fifty Shades of Grey began as fanfic, so let’s look at the similarities:

-Bella and Ana are both innocent virgins with no sexual or romantic experience whatsoever.
-They both come from a divorced family with a flighty mom and a taciturn dad.
-Bella and Ana are both clumsy and a bit awkward and not aware of their beauty.
-They both have a good ‘friend’ who is actually in love with them, and their dads are friends.

-Edward & Christian are both inhumanly beautiful.
-They are both adopted by high achieving doctor parents who love Bella/Ana.
-Edward & Christian are both rich, worldly, experienced, sophisticated,  play piano, can dance, smell amazing, and do everything great.
-Neither have been in love before.
-Both of them are ‘broken’ and ‘dangerous’ (though a vampire is a bit worse)
-They both hate themselves for who they are and what they do but they are clearly good inside.
-Edward and Christian both have endless time to lavish attention, listen to, buy things for,  watch over and protect the woman they love. (Both a little too much if you ask me!)
-Both find that they are so dangerously attracted to the female, that they have to hold themselves back from loving them till they kill them.

Those last few characteristics are something that most vampire/werewolf romance novels have in common:
The men are part animal in some way. They are dangerous, strong & powerful. Often wealthy and good at most things, they can hear, see, & smell better, are faster, etc.  In many cases they have wandered the earth for hundreds of years without finding ‘the one’. The women they meet and fall for is usually innocent and usually tames them to a point, but that edge of danger is always there. Often a painful bite turns into an erotic experience when they mate (yum). And often when these creatures mate, it’s for life (which can literally be eternity!) Plus, for some reason, these ‘animals’ all tend to just love the ‘taste’ of their woman (and what woman minds that?)

Obviously women tend to like to fantasize about the inhumanly beautiful, dangerous, sexy, dominant, protective, alpha male who is sophisticated and romantic outside the bedroom (while barely controlling themselves around you), but loses control in the bedroom and makes pain and pleasure mix until you scream.

This is not a new phenomenon. Look at the ‘bodice rippers’ of the past. Look at Rhett Butler. We have always liked the idea of having the power to bring a man to his knees with desire and being swept away, devoured, protected and worshipped by your man. A wild, dangerous man who is only tamed by you. This can be a paranormal or a contemporary romance–the paranormal just adds a little more danger and intrigue.

Either way, these are FANTASIES!!! With the contemporary romance books, it is harder to tell, granted, but they are fantasies nonetheless. How many guys are like Christian? And would you really want that? Say you are all period crampy, have a big zit, had a bad day, and just want to snuggle up with a book, but Mr. Grey wants to bend you over the sink and yank out your tampon? Sure, maybe it’s a little hot the first time, but in 10 years I think I’d be saying “Get the heck off me, Asshat!” At least with paranormal, you KNOW it’s a fantasy, and don’t expect the perfect, protective, dominant, romantic, broken-but-you-can-fix-him, gorgeous, rich, can-make-you-come-20-times vampire to sweep you off your feet. (But we can dream…)

So, my point is, many people who love Fifty Shades and other erotic or contemporary romance don’t get the silly “vampire thing”. Well maybe you get it more than you think! Along with Twilight (which may sound silly to read, but it does have the Fifty Shades feel, obviously), the Black Dagger Brotherhood is a series about Vampires and one of the books is also a truly HOT BDSM book with a lot of Fifty-like aspects, but I recommend you start at the beginning of the series. Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series and Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series are great too (though the last has a kick-ass heroine instead of a virginal sub).

Remember, having a guy with all the power can be totally hot. And if they bite your neck (or elsewhere?) well, that’s just a bonus.

Happy reading!