During a romance writers’ conference, I attended a panel discussion on writing interracial romance. What I learned was that interracial romance was not limited to love between human of different races. There were the alien/human romances, phantom/human romances even a liger/human romance. It was interesting to say the least and though I have never read one such book I wondered how authors came up with such imaginations. I met one author who wrote a whole line of other-worldly interspecies romance. She was a petite African American (a size zero dress would be too big for her) with copper tone complexion and shaved head. She appeared rather eccentric, dressed like some of the characters in her books and even had a strange accent though she lived all her life in my neck of the woods.
I asked her how she came up with all those strange characters and she said her “Viking” was the inspiration. Well I did meet her “Viking.” This author’s husband, a Caucasian, was a giant of a man, well over six feet and at least three hundred pounds. He had long blond hair, tattoos all over and rode a Harley. They made quite the odd couple.
Meeting them I understood how she could easily visualize romance between different beings, even different species and how he inspired her work. It takes a certain level of open-mindedness and imagination to conceive of romance between different species.
While vampire/human romances has been around long enough to make it acceptable, even desirable, I personally can’t conceive of a romance between a human and a liger (cross between lion and tiger) no matter how attractive that liger is or whether he comes from a different world or not. That to me borders on bestiality. However, it does have an audience and there are readers who can read past the physical differences and see the love in the hearts of the characters.
What do you think about interspecies romance?
7 comments:
If you want the opportunity to try gay, straight and interspecies all simultaneously, then look no further than Jadzia Dax.
I'm all for it! I've actually read quite a lot of it, though only as part of my reading in science fiction and fantasy, which often includes elements of this. Take Star Trek for example, with Spock and quite a few other later characters being the result of inter species romances. I think there are a lot of great possibilities for stories in the idea, and some things to say about the human condition.
Captain Black, you can tell my naivite. I had to look up who Jadzia Dax was. I don't think I have ever seen an episode of DS nine.
Charles, when you think of it, Vampires have human form in some ways and makes it more acceptable to most humans to have relationships with mortals. The same can be said about the Star Trek characters, they have very human characteristics. I think most of them stand upright on two legs and at least appear somewhat human.
It is harder to visualize a love affair between something that looks like a dog or snake, or liger and a human.
But then again, Greek mythology had a whole lot of strange interspecies (or inter-god) love affairs that produced offspring, long before Star Trek was concieved.
Human-liger romance? Gimme a break! That said, I suppose as with all stories, the secret is in the execution. The idea of physical love between human and animal is off-putting (bestiality?) but if, say, there's a human spirit trapped in the liger and all the romance is on a spiritual level, maybe...
It's far easier to accept the idea of romance between humans and mythical creatures, and it helps if said creatures have human characteristics so there's common ground. Human-Vulcan, yes. Human-green ooze with multiple eyes - not so much.
I'm an anti-fan of human-vampire romances. Those creatures drink human blood to stay alive. They have fangs. Not the stuff of which romantic heroes are made.
Liane I think I can agree with you there. But with the amount of shape shifter, vampire, and alien/human romance we are in the minority.
No animals please! I do like shape-shifters but the mating has to be when they're both in human form. The other is too close to bestiality for me.
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