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We all have them.  Sometimes we call them alligators.  I like dragons and it’s more apropos for this discussion.  There are chocolate dragons,  vodka dragons (mine is lemon flavored at the moment), crazy bitch from hell dragons,  shoe dragons (notorious for getting off the leash to soothe crazy bitch dragon)…I think you get the point.  The dragon of the day is a Nightshade (Gerard Butler reference get used to it)… tall, dark, damaged and NOT on the menu!

“When I was a child, I spoke, thought and reasoned as a child…”  fell in love with and married Hitler’s wet dream. (Yes, despite the protestations of 20 yr olds every where…20 = CHILD).   Then I hit my 30s and grew up.   I can’t exactly say when it happened but I remember where, what, and who first made me aware of this phenomenal change in my taste.  I was no longer “moved” by smooth faced boys with perfect hair and perfect teeth.   WWF wrestlers weren’t “hot” they were oddly hairless and over muscled oily humanoids. (I‘m sure they are perfectly nice but…)

Manly men, masculine, hairy chested,  scruffy cheeked, sometimes balding, dark, damaged, scared, tattooed, imperfect men…usually with an accent are my woman self’s forbidden fruit basement dweller.
As we all know or should know, dragons forgotten or presumed dead will, when least expected rise up and lay waste to the land…you saw “Reign of Fire” (Butler again.)  Last I checked Matthew McConaughey  is not going to show up on my door step and blow up the brownies, the booze or the ill advised lust.  So what must a wise woman do?  A controlled feed.   Safe, harmless,  all in good fun dragon feeding.   WARNING: Overfeeding is just as dangerous.  Over fed CBD’s will get you on the Springer show…just sayin.

Feeding and care of the Nightshade

Literary amuse bouche .  A wee snack if you will, when you find yourself ogling the referee at your kid’s basketball game or the smooth head and salt & pepper goatee of the man beside you on a plane.  I highly recommend the works of Diana Gabaldon and JR Ward. Yes, there are hundreds of others who weave a world of super sexy alpha males.  However, these two stand out for me because neither wastes my time.  They don’t create characters I care about then change them…FIX them with twue luv for the “happy ending” with unicorns and rainbows.  Gadaldon and Ward embrace the character flaws.  Their heroes are perfect in their imperfections, physically and emotionally.

Cinematic entrée.  NOT porn, that is a whole other dragon and creates a swirling vortex of unreal expectations for everyone.  Movies are a great place to feed the need to lust without repercussions.   Best done with understanding and enabling girlfriends.   NOTHING in the Nicholas Sparks repertoire will feed the Nightshade dragon…..sorry kids, you need a man for this.   Once upon a time, Gable, Wayne, Bogie, Mitchum, et al satisfied the appetite for raw masculine sex appeal.  Watch any of them kiss a woman if you doubt me.   None of these men were physically “beautiful” what they were was MEN.  They  tapped into the deepest core and  plucked the feminine tuning fork.  They seldom played paragons of virtue, instead their characters owned the flaws, making us love them for it even if or especially if they were the villains.

Where can I find a big steak of a man today you ask?  Look around.  Most  men who have served or are serving in some capacity possess this dragon feeding maleness. These may be a little too close,  too attainable to be dragon taming.  So we return to the silver screen.  Gerard Butler (see a pattern here?), Michael Fassbender,  Mark Strong, Jason Statham, Sean Bean, Clive Owen, Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and if you MUST have one from the Western hemisphere…new star of “Game of Thrones” and “Conan the Barbarian”, Jason Mamoa certainly fills the plate despite his youth.   Not pretty boys, voices like sandpaper and silk, scars,  crooked smiles,  hidden depths in their eyes, and we love them even more when they die for us don’t we?

Visual dessert.   Again NOT PORN…well not in the SCOTUS definition anyway.  Like any treat, small doses to satisfy and keep you from eating the whole carton of  Tin Roof in the dark, or becoming that woman whispered about over the fences.

Jane Eyre tells Adele,  “the shadows are as important as the light.”   In art and men, the darkness gives depth.  Wounds give character to the body and soul . Maybe that is what makes men of boys. Maybe that is what makes men attractive, proof of living and surviving ?  Maybe that is why I was over 30 before I figured it out……I had to have my own shadows and scars to see the beauty of them in men?