I'm currently reading "Winter Fire" by Elizabeth Lowell and one of the female secondary characters is described as a Sporting Gal, can anyone tell me what that means?? Here is the sentence in the book that describes her:

" Word had it that Lola was man-sized, man-hard, and tough as any sporting gal who had ever ventured west of the Mississippi."

A sporting gal is a prostitute.

Does this mean I should really be offended if anyone tells me I'm a good sport?

Colleen

Thanks Sherron, that was my first thought, but then when they described her as Man-sized and Man-hard, it confused me a bit. Did men like big manly type girls back then when they visited brothels or something?

I don't think cowboys were particular about what the woman looked like when they had a few whiskeys and had a pocket full of cash on a Saturday nite, ya'all.

If modern porn is any indication.....there is a fetish for everyone and everythang....

Tanya - I think Lowell was referring to her toughness. Hothouse lilies prone to parlor swooning did not make their own way in the wild west. And I imagine you'd have to be made of stern stuff to do the nasty with lice and flea-bitten cowboys and miners who hadn't bathed in a month. Eeewwww!

I remember watching a History channel program about women in the west. Prostitutes seldom lived to see 40. Very sad.

Colleen

Like Maggie Osborne's gritty heroines.  Although some of them tend to have a little more grit on them than I usually care for.  Like references to how unattractive they can be on the trail - she writes a lot of road/trail romances - with bacon grease smeared on themselves to soften up their leathery skin, or soot to prevent wind & sun burns:P  I like reality, but I could skip descriptions of a heroine who reeks of bacon fat.

yeah bacon fat doesn't have the same appeal as whipped cream and chocolate syrup...