Dangerguy

I was precocious. I think I wrote my first real stories in Grade 7 at the ripe old age of 12. I was already reading adult literature so my writing was rather sophisticated for my age--adult themes and all. It was still dreadfully amateurish stuff, but ambitious.

I later studied literature and I think that did my creative writing a disservice in some ways, because I became intimidated by the likes of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, et al. I felt like it had all been done, so what could I possibly bring to the table? Then I went astray from the lofty world of literature and fell in love with genre fiction. I like genre writing because no one's really trying to write "the Great American Novel", they're just trying to tell a good story. That doesn't mean genre fiction can't contain high-quality writing--in fact it often does--but that's not the be-all/end-all.

I wrote my first superheroine-in-peril story, "Wonder Woman versus the Plant Mistress", way back in the early 2000s. There was a lot less superheroine material available back in the early days of the Internet, so I guess I was following that old writing advice, "write the story you want to read". I still try to do that.

There are probably as many answers to that question as there are people who are into the superheroine-in-peril genre. But I'll put on my Psych 101 cap for a moment and take a crack at answering.

First off, superheroines are sexual by nature. The artists consistently draw them as beautiful, almost perfect women with fit, voluptuous bodies. Then there's the costumes: always either skin-tight or revealing or both. And because comic books are all about action, the heroines are drawn in dynamic poses that really let the artists show off their appreciation for the female form.

That's all before we even get to most of the fetish stuff! But there's tons of that too. Superheroines are strong--they're warriors. So that appeals to the fans of muscular women. And they wind up in perilous situations: chloroform, capture, bondage, death traps, and so on. Those with a dominant streak can imagine themselves capturing and dominating the superheroine, while those on the submissive side can imagine being defeated and dominated by her. So in many ways a superheroine offers something for everyone.

And let's keep in mind that most of us starting reading comic books at a young, impressionable age. For me, and I suspect for many others, superheroines became some of our first sexual archetypes.