Monsters filling in for men isn’t a new conceit. The idea shows up in mythology—from Zeus transforming into every kind of animal to commit adultery to Psyche being warned that her new husband, Eros, would be grotesque—as well as in folklore and countless retellings of Beauty and the Beast. But those earlier tales often used monstrousness as an allegory for male violence. The gods enact their whims indiscriminately, presenting themselves as beautiful or hideous to those they desire, who must either accept their form or face their wrath. A creature can kidnap a maiden and hold her hostage, so long as the story ends with marriage.
More recent monster romances center female desire—erotic and emotional. In Your Monster, Melissa Barrera’s Laura manifests a towering beast to work through the pain of a traumatic breakup and cancer diagnosis. Lisa Frankenstein’s teenaged hero doesn’t resurrect a Modern Prometheus to abandon; she happens upon a deceased boyfriend who helps her unpack the pain of her mother’s death. Guillermo del Toro grounds The Shape of Water in Elisa’s quest to be understood by those around her. Her amphibian love affair is the result of finally connecting with another being who sees her in totality. In each story, the monsters provide the characters with something the human world failed to grant them.
Hollywood’s monsters are tame compared to those in modern fiction. In a freakier offshoot of the romantasy that has overtaken bestseller lists in recent years, these monster tales have sensational titles and even wilder plots. Take Ice Planet Barbarians, where human women are stranded in space with blue-tinted humanoids called the Sakh, all of whom are very interested in mating. Morning Glory Milking Farm is the tale of a broke postgraduate who takes a job collecting minotaur semen for a pharmaceutical company. (Yes, you read that correctly.) In Tusk Love, orcs engage in behaviors J.R.R. Tolkien never could have imagined.
It would be easy to make a mockery of the passionate communities online that enjoy such stories, but that misses the point. The objects of female desire—boy bands, teen idols, soap opera characters, suspiciously close hockey players—have always been subject to ridicule. Monster romances embrace the transgression by offering up the most extreme scenarios possible to titillate and (on occasion) challenge prevailing mores.
It is inherently ridiculous for a woman to marry a sentient basket, but when he’s more capable and considerate than the men around her, he becomes the sane option. Whether they are werewolves, goblins, or men woven out of wicker, it’s their representation of masculinity that matters most. Outsiders, persecuted for features they have no control over, these fictional men are also privy to the lookism that women face daily. It’s not uncommon for them to express their insecurities around how others perceive them or commiserate with their partner about what it’s like to be misunderstood, judged solely based on their appearance.
