I got my most recent RWR in the mail the other day, and since my entire job as a giant pregnant lady is to relax, gain weight, and sit around waiting, I read it cover to cover. Usually I skim it, check out the contest winners, look at the articles and who wrote them, and read a piece here or there. But hey, I sit down now, and I don’t move voluntarily for at least an hour, so bring on the reading material.
And hello, page 4’s Letters to the Editor! I laughed out loud. Did anyone else notice this one?
Madeline Baker, she doesn’t like the cussing:
I continue to be shocked by the language in some romance novels I’m reading. It’s unfortunate that more and more authors feel the need to use the “F word” in their books, but even worse, the word “Motherf…” has cropped up in two of my recent reads. It’s bad enough when language like this is uttered by the villain, but when it comes out of the mouth of the heroine… well, I’m just plain stunned. Surely it’s possible to write a gutsy heroine without having her talk like a gang member.
Here are a few choices of response that pop to mind:
1. Bitch, please.
2. Racist and classist undertones aside, I’m as offended by books titled Cheyenne Surrender as you are by the word “fuck.”
3. Fuck that!
4. Gang members? Only gang members say “fuck?” Seriously?
Perhaps the problem is the reading material she’s choosing, which she addresses in her letter:
Lately I’ve read several books that have ‘paranormal romance’ on the spine. In my opinion, a good number of them haven’t been romances at all, and that includes the one I threw across the room just last night….
Demons and vampires and werewolves, especially the ones that want to kill you, will totally stop if you speak nicely and say, “Please.”
I doubt if it will ever happen, but I’d like to see some kind of rating on books so that I’ll know what I’m getting before it’s too late.
Now that there, THAT is an IDEA. Why did we think of that?! We here at the Smart Bitch HQ, we got us some Photoshop. There need to be warnings on books!
Our advisories, let us show you them:
You can Has more!
Just to be clear, I used the example of Flowers in the Attic b/c it’s fairly explicit, but I honestly have no idea if it’s still on the shelves in Bartlesville, OK. I suspect it is, but only b/c no one’s noticed it yet.
megalith’s point here—In cases where people’s mental health is actually at issue, I’m afraid I still say that they bear the responsibility for their own health rather than the author or publishing house.—is a really good one for me.
For no reason whatsoever, I have struggled over the past couple of years with an abnormally strong reaction to sexual assault scenes in books/tv/movies. And I do mean abnormally strong. I read one such thing in the grocery store book aisle, and was unable to finish my shopping b/c I was shaking and extremely nauseous. (Took me weeks to get the images out of my head, and even now, years later, I try not to think of that book.)
So I tend to be very careful, even now that I’ve got the problem largely under control, of what I read. When I read fanfiction, I look for a warning for non-consensual sex, and then I don’t read that story. With most romance novels, I don’t worry too much about it. I really only read on recommendation, or go with authors I know to be “safe,” b/c it’s just not worth it to me to risk damaging the progress I’ve made on this issue just by reading one graphic rape. (And with books I suspect may contain assaults, I ask friends who have read the book—which is why, much to my disappointment, I won’t be able to read Nora’s High Noon. It looks really good, but I was warned that if you’re trigged by sexual assault…it’s not the book for you. ::sigh:: Plus, I’m still trying to recover from Blue Smoke.)
I’d love a website that gave me some of this information. But I still take responsibility for my own issues and preferences. I don’t expect books to be labelled for my comfort. Worst case scenario…I can always skip those pages.
Qadesh,
Do they not know that their kids can order the book from any bookstore and I bet they won’t require parental permission?
Don’t be giving us Okies any ideas there. 😉
Actually, it dependes entirely on the bookstore and whether it’s willing to carry the book. I don’t know how things stand nowadays as I haven’t been home in awhile, but when I was there full time, it was not possible to find a copy of “The Last Temptation of Christ” anywhere. Not that I was on some crusade to see this movie—I’ve still never seen it—but it always stuck with me because not only did no theatre show it, but you couldn’t rent it at any of the video stores and you couldn’t buy it at any of the local businesses. With internet shopping, this is certainly no longer such an important issue. However, growing up in a place that could so thoroughly block access like that made me take the issue pretty seriously at a young age. Well youngish. 😉
(I suppose this is sort of tangential to the discussion, but it was one of my first experiences with social pressure forcing censorship.)
monimala sez: “If she looks like a castle, she’s got bigger problems than her language use. Hope the hero can get that pesky drawbridge down!”
Har!
I read it initially as a particularly inventive euphemism for double-D’s, myself…