The whole "taming" concept comes up periodically here in PPD, often randomly in the comments as I saw a few times last week. I'm not a consumer of trashy romance novels by any means but I did read 50SoG a decade ago and I get the sense a lot of these storylines follow a similar template. Even George of the Jungle has subtle undertones of this. SpaceWhiskey's 50 Shades was accurate to why the fantasy is so appealing to women and the humidity in their knickers:

An average girl tames an Alpha playboy, she brings him to heel despite his desire to dominate her and he one by one caves to her every demand, giving up his player lifestyle, his sex dungeon requirement for their intimacy, his fear of commitment, his mommy issues, his stance on kids. She gets out of him everything he swore he would never give: normal sex, marriage, a big house to raise a family in and fatherhood. He submits to her.

tame the Alpha playboy

Then what?

normal sex, marriage, a big house to raise a family in and fatherhood

You go girl! Turn that lion into a housecat! Yet the fantasy hits a hard stop at the point of domestication itself: She locked him down with a ring and a baby. Happily ever after, right? One presumes the rest of the story gets boring in a hurry and doesn't make for titillating literature, domestic family life and yachting with toddlers and all.

All of this begs a few questions:

  • Why is taming such a ladyboner fantasy?
  • Isn't the man's feral, playboy nature what attracted the woman in the first place (aside from his ravishing good looks and billions of dollars)?
  • If the end goal is domestication and locking the guy down, why go through all the trouble to tame him in the first place? Why not just find the boring billionaire and lock HIS ass down and save yourself the trouble? Or is it something else...

AND...

How is this ultimate female fantasy not confirming AF/BB at its core?

Discuss.