RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist's Post

#EngenderedWriting 70 — Many consider jealousy an expression of love demanded by their gender role. How do your stories treat jealousy? Positively? Do you demonize it? Something in between? Snippets are welcome.

I treat jealousy as anger projected to control a resource while masquerading as love, usually with the woman being the bad guy, or the man displaying toxic masculinity found attractive at first. It often verges on psychotic, and it torchers the reader (IMHO) as much as the characters. It hasn't really shown up in my stories, yet, but if it did, it would be to poison a relationship. Problem is, jealousy has been done so many times before, I'd have to think long and hard why I would include it as more than an indicator that an SC's relationship is doomed, some sort of foreshadowing. To give it the full this is anger to control a resource not love treatment I would— You know, really, no ideas here. It would still be the same old same old we've seen too often in soaps, or lamented seeing in our naïve friends who've been brainwashed by society and romantic patriarchal thinking.

Not much I can add. No snippets. Sorry.

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