Fucking Day: Fabio After Dark (Patreon)

So, you know who Fabio is. He’s the guy putting his dick in this lady's armpit:

He's the angel guiding this woman to sex heaven. (It's regular heaven, but only hot people are allowed):

As someone deeply ensconced in the world of romance writing, I'm fascinated by Fabio. Not because he's hot or cool, but because to me, he's a lesson that American romance writers needed to learn in order for the genre to grow. There was a period in the late '80s where Fabio was considered the authority on love and romance. The thing is, he was just a normal, very hot guy. He was good at avoiding carbs, not understanding women.

Assuming anything about someone's personality based on their physical characteristics makes no sense. It's like saying, "Wow, you have big hands. You must be a really good chef because you can grab big fistfuls of grapes."

I think it actively harmed the genre that the face of romance in the '80s was a dude who didn't write romance novels. (He did later in his career "co-write" a few, but they were, um, not great. More on that later).

The popular opinion on Fabio swung from him being a joke to, "no, he's a good businessman, and we should take Fabio seriously," and I'm sorry, but we had it right the first time. Fabio is a joke who takes himself way too seriously, and as supporting evidence to this statement, may I present Fabio After Dark, the 1993 audio crime that Fabio committed.

Even though some version of Fabio's face is on the cover of around four hundred and sixty-six romance novels, he only modeled for romance covers for about six years. Once he realized how profitable being a hot guy was, he wanted to expand his hotness across multiple genres, telling The Today Show his goal was to "bring romance to every medium," which he did! He made a bad TV show called Acapulco H.E.A.T., produced a bad direct to VHS movie, Fabio: A Time For Romance, and brought his own special Fabio brand of love to the music genre with Fabio After Dark.

It's not a bad album because Fabio is singing in his second language and has an accent. I respect how hard that is to do. If you asked me to sing in Spanish, it would be the worst song you've ever heard about a small red dog who says hello because my dumbass only speaks one point two languages. It's a bad album because Fabio talks/sings his thoughts on romance and unfortunately he...doesn't have any?

The album starts off super intense. It feels like Fabio is grabbing you by your shirt collar, pulling you within an inch of his full lips and absolutely screaming, "I AM VERY INTERESTED IN WHAT MAKES ROMANCE WORK." Fabio talks about romance like he's reading a car manual. "If I turn this knob to the right, is that the romance? No? You hate that? Amazing."

The first song is literally Fabio reading the advertising material on the inside of the album cover while some sexy robotic beeping and booping plays over a jazzy electric piano freestyle.

It's an absolutely wild assumption that a man would invite a woman over for a date and then play her a CD of Fabio whispering to her to get her in the mood to fuck Fabio but, oh no, Fabio isn't here. Guess he'll have to do! BAM the horny trap is sprung!

We then move into the Billy Ocean song, "Suddenly." Yes, there's a Now That's What I Call Sex Music vibe to this album. Several of the songs are popular romantic ballads from non-Fabio artists that Fabio borrowed to pad out his romantic musings on topics like film, humor, and surprises. He didn't have the budget for enough popular songs to fill a whole album or enough sexy ideas to whisper over two additional pieces, so two tracks are instrumentals.

After "Suddenly" wraps up, we get to hear Fabio's thoughts on inner beauty. This time there are some backup singers added to the mix, so when Fabio intensely whispers, "I can be very shy when I first meet a woman," they come in to add a little, "Woo wooOO oooh yeah," like they agree with Fabio. He's very shy, and if you don't believe him ask the five women he hired to agree with him. He's only dated four of them. Woo wooOO oooh yeah!

The next song on the album is "Tender Love" by The Force MDs. It's fine. It's a fine song.  Then we get to hear Fabio's views on films! He "wishes there were more romantic films because romantic films can lead to...beautiful adventures after we leave the theater." Fabio pauses a lot mid sentence because pausing is...

sexy.

See, that makes me think Fabio has never been on a date. Does he think the film has to be romantic to lead to sex? Does he think nobody's ever gotten railed after watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?

"I like to take a special lady to a cinema where we can hold hands in the dark and whisper very quietly about what we see," Fabio says. Oh God, he's one of those guys. "Woody is the cowboy man and Buzz Lightyear is the space guy, right Lydia?" I can just hear him bugging me through the whole movie.

Fabio's thoughts on being annoying in a movie theater are followed by the song "Reservations For Two," a duet between Dionne Warwick and Kashif that's got most of the things Fabio loves: whispering, electric keyboards, a long boring story. The only thing missing is Fabio! Don't worry; he pops right back up to give us his thoughts on tropical islands (he's in favor).

The track "Fabio: On Tropical Islands" starts with Fabio saying, "Sometimes...there is no place I'd rather be than on a troooooooopical island." He really drags the word tropical out, so you know it means sexy. It's a sexy island with sand that doesn't get in your butt cheeks and make you itchy, and the birds, instead of being loud and annoying, are playing tiny saxophones at each other.

This is the track where we finally get that sexy sax solo we've been waiting for the entire album, and it's worth it! The sax rips as Fabio whispers, "the only sounds we hear are the sounds of nature, and of our hearts beating as one, and the only music is the music we make together." So I assume his special lady is the one playing the sax.

I feel like it's important to note that Fabio never uses the term "girlfriend," it's always my special lady. It feels intentional, like he's an "I'm not into labels" guy.

The album goes on like that for seventeen tracks: popular love song of the 1980s, Fabio's thoughts on humor, popular song, Fabio's thoughts on surprises, popular song, Fabio's thoughts on the Napoleonic Wars, popular song, Fabio's thoughts on the morality of cloning, instrumental, Fabio's thoughts on John Wayne Gacy (serial killer or misunderstood nice guy). That one isn't great.

The only thing that breaks that pattern up slightly is track nine, "When Somebody Loves Somebody," which is actually kind of a song? It has a repeated chorus, "When somebody loves somebody everything comes naturally." Fabio actually sings that line! Granted, he's mixed way down, and the backup singers are doing most of the heavy lifting. "Sing" might be a strong word, but he melodically chants it at least.

"When somebody loves somebody, everything comes naturally. I sit here waiting for the phone to ring. For her I would do anything," Fabio chants. Ok, well, waiting for her to call isn't a big deal. I'm not going to give him a trophy for that. It's kind of the bare minimum, Fabio.

Weirdly, most of the lyrics of the song contradict the chorus. Nothing is coming naturally to Fabio in this relationship. He's pissed she hasn't called. He's wondering if he should write her a love letter. In the end, he decides, "There is no looking back. Once again, a love attack," which I hope isn't a fancy Italian phrase for a heart attack. Is Fabio ok? Does he die at the end of track nine? No, he's right back on track ten to tell us laughter makes him horny.

I get that the album is supposed to be sexy, but I think it's a real missed opportunity to get Fabio's thoughts on stuff I actually want Fabio's thoughts on. He is a pretty good businessman. What are Fabio's thoughts on accounting?

"When I...look at beautiful numbers, I think about how important...balancing your accounts every single month is. Skipping a month is not sexy. You have to do this over and over again until you achieve... perffffection."

Sadly I'll never get answers to my serious Fabio related inquiries because all of Fabio's whispered opinions on the album are so boring. Surprises are fun, sure. Slow dancing is good, yeah. For once I wish Fabio would shock me. I wish he'd come out hard against something romantic.

There should be a track called "Fabio: On Candle Light" where he's like, "I think candles are...the worst fucking thing ever created. All candles can eat shit. Why would you...want to put fire inside your house? This is crazy? Get out of here with your fucking candles."

I could go to Fabio's biography for the answers to my deepest Fabio's questions. It was published in 1993 and is called, Fabio. The only issue with that is the man who wrote Fabio's biography is Peter F. Paul, Fabio's former manager who has been in jail for defrauding the Cuban government with a plan to sell them coffee and then sink a boat with no coffee on it to collect the insurance money, but then fucking it all up. More recently he went to jail a second time for a securities fraud charge after doing some very shady shit to an aging Stan Lee. So, anything written in that book is not coming from a man known for being good at telling the truth.

I could also look to Fabio's own works to tell me the story of Fabio. He has "co-written" a series of romance novels himself. The first of which, Pirate, is the most well known. Here is the synopsis:

"Years after Italian privateer Marco Glaviano saves orphaned twelve-year-old Christina Abbott from Spanish pirates and takes her to his Caribbean island hideaway, he cannot deny his love for the now-grown-up young woman."

I'm going to give that two thumbs way yikes! I do not want to know Fabio's secrets enough to check that out.

There's a good reason the Fabio-style romance hero has fallen out of favor with modern audiences. Romance novels of that time period focused very heavily on women being as they would put it, "taken against their will" by overpowering buff men to release the reader from any pesky slutshamy feelings about the heroine enjoying no-strings-attached sex with the hero prior to marriage.

Today romantic heroes get to be more or less normal guys. Most women are less interested in being "taken" by a pirate daddy and more interested in just a normal English teacher who is kind of a nerd but will totally go down on them, or a big hunky rugby player who is kind of a nerd and will totally go down on them, or a mysterious billionaire who is also a nerd that will go down on them.

Sure, tastes vary and there are still plenty of Fabioish gentleman gracing romance novel covers with titles like My Shapeshifting Billionaire Boss Ram Jams Me In His Expensive Wine Dungeon. But the most mainstream contemporary romance heroes have gone in the opposite direction of Fabio, which is at least partially Fabio's fault.

I blame Fabio After Dark! I have no more questions about Fabio. Well, maybe just one question. I'd love to know Fabio's thoughts on America's second most famous Italian hunks, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario. Has he ever walked into a party and announced, "It's a me: Faaaabio!" Because I think that would rule.