Bitchin' Blog Posts
HaBO: It’s Always Fun When They’re Funny
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | September 03, 2011 | Saturday at 5:07 pm | 53 CommentsThis query made me LOL like AOL and ROFLMAO like Chairman Mao. Enjoy A’s request with me, won’t you?
Let me start by saying I have NO idea why I want to re-read this book
because it just sounds awful, but that seems to change nothing because the
darned thing sticks in my head and I want to read it anyway, even if it’s
probably going to hit the wall 10 times before I finish it (so I’d rather
not use my e-reader). The book had to have been published prior to 2000
because I remember reading it in high school, but it’s very probable it was
published prior to that.
The main thing I remember is that the lead female (I want to say her name
was Kate) is the best friend of the hero’s little sister. The hero,
upstanding guy that she is, thinks she’s a big ol’ slutbag because of a
misunderstanding at the beginning of the book involving her being naked in a
poolhouse while changing clothes, when a snake comes in and scares the tar
out of her. Hero comes in just as Heroine is clinging nakedly to Random
Witless Male Bystander and of course Hero assumes she’s the afforementioned
big ol’ ho-bag. Wackiness ensues over the course of several years where
he’s attracted to her and makes her feel like a skank because of his
issues. Of course the heroine is actually a virgin and would never allow
someone who wasn’t the hero to approach her sacred love cavern with their
rod of steel, but the hero refuses to believe it and treats her like crap
for most of the book.I also might be confusing this part of the plot with another book, but it
seems like the main character is so much the Queen Ultimate Virgin of All
Things Unpenetrated that she has some kind of physical problem and there’s
this doctor who’s all, “We must surgically remove your hymen or this dude
and his purple-headed love stick are going to rip you a new one -
literally,” and the heroine is all, “But no, if you remove my hymen, how
will the douchebag I’m in love with know that I’m not a big ol’ slut
bag?” And there’s a big dramatic sex scene involving pain and the hero is
all, “Oh darn me and this freakishly giant penis! I could have hurt you.
You must really love me to do such a thing.”So does this ring any bells for anyone? Honestly, I have no idea why I want
to re-read this book, but it’s been driving me crazy for about 6 months
since it first popped back into my head. I want to say it’s a Diana Palmer
(and it sounds exactly like her kind of thing) but I looked through her
booklist and didn’t see anything that matched it.
Seriously. I hope that this book is found so that it can be read and reread by ALL OF US. Because OMG. WTF. BBQ.
Filed: General Bitching, Help a Bitch Out
Tagged: wtfery, old skool, lol, historical, help a bitch out, habo, awesomesauce
quizzabella said on 09.03.11 at 05:36 PM • [link]
Wow. Someone please recognise this book because it sounds unitentionally hilarious. Snakes, reinforced hymens and misunderstandings oh my.
Lori said on 09.03.11 at 05:53 PM • [link]
This sounds like it should be a contest. Write the big penetration scene for Steel Hymens, a story about a group of southern women who hang out in a salon and pretend they know what sex is.
I want to read this book too. Please someone remember it.
sweeks1980 said on 09.03.11 at 06:02 PM • [link]
That is totally a Diana Palmer, but for the life of me I can’t remember the name of the book (it doesn’t help that her books sort of blend together).
sweeks1980 said on 09.03.11 at 06:04 PM • [link]
After entering some unique keywords into Google, I think the book is Diana Palmer’s “The Texas Ranger.” The description of the book on Amazon totally references the “minor surgery” (their quotes, not mine) that the heroine needs to enjoy sex as well as the crazy misunderstanding at the beginning of the book: http://www.amazon.com/Texas-Ranger-Diana-Palmer/dp/0373770235
Lindlee said on 09.03.11 at 06:15 PM • [link]
OMG. This sounds awful even by Diana Palmer standards.
Aly said on 09.03.11 at 06:25 PM • [link]
“approach her sacred love cavern with their
rod of steel”
ROTFL! Pure gold!
Betty Fokker said on 09.03.11 at 07:21 PM • [link]
That heroine had a seal of asshat-approval over her Glittery HooHa ... how very, very disturbing.
Betty Fokker said on 09.03.11 at 07:22 PM • [link]
Steel hymens—BBBwwwahhhahh!!
Allie said on 09.03.11 at 07:46 PM • [link]
The part with the pool house and snake is from Diana Palmer’s Betrayed by Love. And the hymen surgery is from The Texas Ranger. Best not to ask how I’m so familiar with these books :)
material63 - Yep, I’ve read more than 63 of Diana Palmer’s books.
Lena said on 09.03.11 at 07:50 PM • [link]
“Your wang cannot harm me! My hymen is like a shield of steel!”
Mel R said on 09.03.11 at 08:02 PM • [link]
I don’t care what books this is—I want to hear more description from A! This is absolutely heeeeelarious!
I agree, it does sound like Diana Palmer. Who should definitely start using phrases like “freakishly giant penis” in her writing.
MarieC said on 09.03.11 at 08:37 PM • [link]
I totally agree!
Renee said on 09.03.11 at 09:25 PM • [link]
Wow, I just read the description for “The Texas Ranger” on Amazon. The “hero” sounds like a douche-canoe of the first order! I think I’ll skip it.
Kelly C. said on 09.03.11 at 09:27 PM • [link]
He is a true Texas Ranger. A man of integrity with a soul of steel—pursuing honor and justice is as natural as breathing in Marc Brannon’s line of work. Called to the scene of a high-profile murder, Brannon finds himself pitted against the vibrant—and vulnerable—junior investigator from his past. Years ago his heart had been in… more »tertwined with Josette Langley’s . . . until she’d made an explosive accusation that had sent shock waves through political circles—and shattered his faith in her. Now they are back together again . . . And there is more at stake than just their stubborn pride. For this homicide investigation is becoming more complex and dangerous with each passing day—and time is not on their side. Can these disillusioned lovers close in on the truth before the culprit claims another victim? Or will they both be caught in the cross fire
Kelly C. said on 09.03.11 at 09:29 PM • [link]
Betrayed By Love - Silhouette Desire, No 391
Author: Diana Palmer
MISCONCEPTIONS — Jacob Cade had strong opinions about which women were off-limits and which weren’t. Kate Walker belonged in the second category—hadn’t he once thrown her off his ranch for misbehaving? He’d never stopped wanting her, though, and it was time to make his move. — Kate had been in love with Jacob since childhood. Unbeknow… more »nst to him, she wasn’t the kind of woman who took love lightly. Now Jacob was back in her life, but she didn’t dare tell him the truth.
Kate risked everything just being with Jacob. Her gamble almost ended in disaster—until Jacob decided to take some risks of his own
Both synopsis’ courtesy of PaperbackSwap
Charlene said on 09.04.11 at 12:24 AM • [link]
Diana Palmer’s Justin’s also has the same sex scene where the hero Justin hurts the heroine Shelby because she didn’t want to have minor surgery because then he wouldn’t know she was a virgin. She had supposedly cheated on him back when they were engaged so it was her only proof that it didn’t happen after they later married due to her being broke and losing her home and he wanted revenge.
There is no snake scene though so that must be from another Palmer book.
sweeks1980 said on 09.04.11 at 12:58 AM • [link]
@Charlene - I’m disturbed but not surprised that several of Palmer’s heroines have the mighty hymen that can only be penetrated by the mighty rod of love.
Verification word: amount86
I wouldn’t be surprised if Palmer had 86 heroines with this specific problem.
karen said on 09.04.11 at 01:30 AM • [link]
Uh. What I want to know is it really that common for a “minor surgery” to break a hymen? Or is the doctor somehow saying that the hymen needs to be operated on because it’s somehow life endangering? Either way, HEAD BANG!
Charlene said on 09.04.11 at 01:47 AM • [link]
@sweeks1980
I remember reading Justin last month then stopping and googling what condition she was talking about. I’ve never heard of such a condition being so common. she gives very little details on what the condition is. At first I thought she was trying to use it for awareness but she never said anything really to explain what the problem was.
Elizabeth Smith said on 09.04.11 at 02:02 AM • [link]
Christ, what an asshole.
Jeffe Kennedy said on 09.04.11 at 02:18 AM • [link]
I just have to jump in and say that a good friend had the “hymen-of-steel” problem, which her mother also had. She literally could not insert a tampon. Fortunately her mother, having suffered in ways I never got to hear the details of, signed up her daughter for the “minor surgery” in her early teens.
Go figure, huh?
And, amusingly, also91.
Carolyn said on 09.04.11 at 02:47 AM • [link]
When I worked in the OR, we did a hymenectomy on a young girl just beginning her puberty. I don’t remember many details. I do remember her hymen completely occluded the vaginal canal. She was having periods, yet wasn’t, because it couldn’t drain.
I always think of that when people say there’s no such thing as a hymen, that it’s just a matter of stretching. :-)
snarkhunter said on 09.04.11 at 02:58 AM • [link]
Yeah, there are women who literally have a thickened hymen to the point where they are physically incapable of having sex without excruciating pain.
Way to grossly exploit that, Diana Palmer. I will make sure to never read your books.
A wins at book description, though!
(Also, wtf is up with the hymen fetish? Plenty of virgins don’t have ‘em, and if it’s some kind of big thing for a guy to cause bleeding, then he’s not the dude I want to sleep with.)
Kimber said on 09.04.11 at 04:45 AM • [link]
Queen Ultimate Virgin of All Things Unpenetrated : Oh, honey - why aren’t you writing books for us to read? What a riot!!!...and what’s really scary? I remember reading this book, but I don’t remember the title. It probably was a DP.
My WV was did27 - You know this girl did not do 27 guys in the boathouse - she was the Queen Ultimate Virgin of All
Things Unpenetrated!!!
kasey said on 09.04.11 at 08:40 AM • [link]
ROFL, I have no idea about the book but A’s description of the search had me laughing harder than I’ve laughed in ages. Thank you A for the snark and sarcasm and entertainment. And thank you to Sarah for sharing it.
As a sidenote: i can understand A wanting to find the book even tho she’ll probably throw it into the wall a dozen or so times. I’ve had the plot of a series romance stuck in my head since 1995 & still haven’t found it even though I rarely read series romance anymore. (except Betty Neels which is my uber-guilty pleasure)
AgTigress said on 09.04.11 at 12:10 PM • [link]
And nobody has mentioned that in some circles, surgery to repair and restore naturally small, stretched or torn hymens, is still available. (I feel that the plural of hymen should be something like hymenides: but obviously it isn’t). The idea of a woman willingly undergoing reconstructive surgery, even of just a small flap of skin, specifically in order that it may be torn again during intercourse, is a fine example of the sheer weirdness of some cultural/sexual mores.
I don’t remember pain, let alone bleeding, but it was a very long time ago, and I used to ride horses a lot as a young girl… The habit of riding astride was one of the classic situations to ‘explain’ an inadequately virginal hymen! :-D
As others have said, the enquirer’s description of the book is priceless!
Donna said on 09.04.11 at 01:01 PM • [link]
This is ABSOLUTELY Betrayed By Love - I am so pleased to finally know a HABO! (Sadly) I’ve read all the Diana Palmer books (!?!) and loads (I do mean LOADS) are similar but the description A writes - should be the blurb it’s so freakin’ accurate!
AgTigress said on 09.04.11 at 01:55 PM • [link]
I never read another Diana Palmer in category romance after I read the outrageous Enamoured. This was some time in the 1980s, and although arrogant and inflexible heroes were common enough at the time, the ‘hero’ of that story was totally unbearable.
Picking up on surgically restored hymens, as I mentioned above, here’s a bit of trivia that might amuse some of you. Surgery was available in the Roman period to reconstruct foreskins. This was because circumcision was very un-Roman, and men who had undergone it, for whatever reason, sometimes wished to reverse it. If anyone wants the reference to a scholarly paper on Roman de-circumcision, I can provide it. ;-)
DebStover said on 09.04.11 at 03:22 PM • [link]
Wow… Learn something new every day.
Jen B. said on 09.04.11 at 05:43 PM • [link]
Now that I have stopped laughing and wiped the tears off my face…
***Round of appause*** For best HaBO description that I have ever read and best responses! WOW and W-O-W!
I have read a handful of Diana Palmer’s books. I don’t get why she is so popular. Her heroes are all douche bags. Her heroines are losers, needy, stupid, whiny, and the list goes on. There is always some sexual secret. I particularly love the super hyman as an excuse for tension in the story.
@A you are awesome. Thanks for asking this HaBO!
Barbara said on 09.04.11 at 07:12 PM • [link]
Whoa, I’ve actually read this. All I had to read was the part about the snake and I had it. She’s quite a cracky writer - I want to say I have her Long Tall Texans series? It’s one of them.. I liked a few of them and then she just got way wacky and I had to quit. There was always some really weird plot device or the hero was awful until the last five or six pages.
Wren Andre said on 09.04.11 at 07:25 PM • [link]
Thanks for the heads up all on avoiding Diana Palmer books - and seriously - A needs to start writing erotic satire. She is freakin’ hilarious!
MariDonne said on 09.04.11 at 08:07 PM • [link]
AgTigress,
I once read about a young Jewish man (Roman Polanski?) during the Holocaust who worked at stretching out what was left of his foreskin while he was in hiding, because he didn’t want the fact that he was circumcised to land him in a concentration camp.
Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I’ll skip the scholarly paper. The description I did read was enough for me. Adding actual surgery during a period before anesthesia? I might almost prefer to read the Diana Palmer. I don’t have those private parts myself, but I have a fondness for them anyway and like to see them treated nicely.
Desiree Holt said on 09.04.11 at 09:48 PM • [link]
I have to say reading her is like a drug…someone help me kick the habit. I think she has cornered the market on asshole men and heroines you just want to slap silly. Yes, this is from Betrayed By Love but it could be any of her books. The heroes should be crippled from all the time they spend jumping to conclusions. And who the hell thinks you can’t get pregnant if you don’t use some kind of protection? I leafed through this book again and had to wipe the tears of laughter off my face.
Donna said on 09.04.11 at 09:55 PM • [link]
So, so true Desiree Holt, very addictive. I read them & feel deja vu EVERY time, yet. . . . I am somehow compelled to continue with them. I think now as well it’s a matter of consistency - I have so many it’s easier to keep on getting them so I have a nice full set. Heck, I buy the new ones & often don’t read them for months! (When I get a new book I’m normally on it like cats with fishfingers).
Zee said on 09.05.11 at 01:11 AM • [link]
@MariDonne—there’s a movie of that guy’s autobiography, I think? The sort of thing that’s usually called “powerful,” and not what you want to watch in your German class with a bunch of sarcastic college students. Sigh. The foreskin-stretching is included.
Miss Moppet said on 09.05.11 at 01:38 AM • [link]
That’s me! I had such a “sturdy” hymen that I thought I was having sex (painfully) for three years but it turned out I was having sex in the tiny opening where my period came from. I had to have surgery to remove my hymen. No matter that the surgery is outpatient, no one who ever had stitches in their vagina would call a hymenectomy “minor”.
Eff the writer who would exploit that.
The truth is that if a mighty wang of loving’ would have broke my hymen I wouldn’t have needed the damned surgery.
JamiSings said on 09.05.11 at 02:56 AM • [link]
Unbreakable hymen? Sure the heroine’s name isn’t Trina Moss?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXJi5vFXyHQ
cbackson said on 09.05.11 at 03:10 AM • [link]
@MariDonne: this happens in the (really excellent) movie Europa, Europa.
Beryl Thompson said on 09.05.11 at 05:37 AM • [link]
This is definitely Diana Palmer,but 2 different books. In Betrayed by Love, it all happened except the hymen of steel part (Bah, ha, ha)!
But it is classic Diana Palmer from the90’s. I stopped reading DP when I could no longer suspend belief enough to get through the town in Texas where old mercenaries and FBI agents come to retire and drug dealers are around every corner
Robin Bayne said on 09.05.11 at 04:56 PM • [link]
Years ago Suzanne Forster had a storyline like that also—the hero ended up using some magic powder or something to numb her while he, um, fixed it.
snarkhunter said on 09.05.11 at 05:04 PM • [link]
@AgTigress
For the most part, I find those revirginification surgeries disgusting. Way to play into the virgin fetish! But I have read that they can literally be life-savers for women from violently traditional societies who have not remained virgins until their wedding nights. Of course, it’s not the best solution, which would be to work towards seeing women’s bodies as their own property, to do with as they please, but if it saves lives or psyches in the meantime…
Aarann said on 09.06.11 at 06:13 AM • [link]
You guys are absolutely right. It’s Betrayed by Love! I dont’ remember reading “The Texas Lawman” (although I must have read it at some point to get the ridiculous inpenetrable hymen storyline stuck in my head) but “Betrayed by Love” sounds exactly like what I remember. Thanks Bitchery!!!!
Aarann "A" said on 09.06.11 at 06:23 AM • [link]
Wow, thanks Bitchery from a truly grateful recovering DP addict! I’m pretty sure this is, in fact, Betrayed by Love. I read the description for “The Texas Lawman” and it didn’t sound familiar, but I suppose I must have read it at some point to get the plotlines confused (unless of course, some of the above posters are correct and - ye gods - the woman has used the Impenetrable Vagina subplot in more than one book). I suppose I’ll be making a trip to the library tomorrow in hopes that they have this one. What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.
Thanks again to everyone! Glad I got to make people laugh! :)
AgTigress said on 09.06.11 at 09:59 AM • [link]
@snarkhunter: yes, the concept of restoring a hymen is quite distasteful, especially in a case (which must occur) when its absence or generally dilapidated condition is not even due to sexual activity, so that the assumption of non-virginal status would have been false in the first place. But in some cultural situations, it is probably preferable to be stitched up, so to speak, rather than to brazen it out.
Surgical interference with the genitals of both males and females has a very long history, and is associated with much more than sexual rules, notably religion, ethnic/cultural identity and aesthetics. The Roman objection to the circumcised penis was based not only on the fact that circumcision was practised chiefly by Egyptians and Jews — that is, foreigners, and moreover, uppity foreigners who had ancient cultures of their own, of which they were proud, instead of being decently embarrassed by their ‘barbarian’ status — but also on a very strict and consistent aesthetic which regarded the exposed glans as ugly. Pubic hair was often removed (by both sexes), for the same reason, because it was regarded as unattractive: too ‘animal’ in appearance. The method used was plucking, not shaving.
snarkhunter said on 09.06.11 at 02:00 PM • [link]
One of my favorite passages in Ovid’s Ars Amatoria is where he says something like, “Ladies should not carry a goat around under their arms.” I was delighted by that wonderfully vivid description of unshaven armpits. Glad (?) to know it applied elswhere on the body. Of course, the thought of plucking it makes my skin crawl, but then, isn’t waxing just a more dramatic form of plucking?
AgTigress said on 09.06.11 at 02:06 PM • [link]
Indeed! But at least it is faster. I imagine that a hair-by-hair removal of pubic hair is quite a lengthy process. I didn’t remember that reference in Ovid, but it is a vivid one. :-)
Todd said on 09.06.11 at 04:57 PM • [link]
I once read a writer who had the “hymen of steel” surgically removed. Her doctor gave her a CERTIFICATE so she could prove she’d been a virgin.
Authentication: seem95
AgTigress said on 09.06.11 at 05:30 PM • [link]
The ‘certificate of virginity’ motif occurs (though not in connection with hymen surgery) in the novel The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake. Incidentally, this is a prime example of a book that illustrates perfectly the way in which ‘serious’ or ‘literary’ fiction can be much, much worse than those allegedly ‘trashy’ romances. The Postmistress has totally unbelievable characters, a pointless and unresolved plot without a clear story arc of any kind, and embarrassingly awful and obvious historical howlers in a story that is set within living memory, during the Second World War. I only read the damn thing because I was on a train, and there was nothing else (having hopefully picked it out because it had good reviews — hah! — and was set in the 1940s). It is the only novel I have ever troubled to write a really scathing review of on Amazon, because I was so irritated that I had spent money on it.
JamiSings said on 09.06.11 at 06:40 PM • [link]
I bet the Romans real objection to circumcision is the fact circumcised men last longer in bed than uncircumcised ones. (It’s also been shown that being circumcised reduces the risk of getting STDs and HIV. And anyway, the foreskin is useless. Unless you have a weird accident that causes you to lose your eyelids, then they can use the foreskin to fashion new ones. Bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “dick head.”)
I can’t remember what book it was - not a Palmer - where the heroine has all her hair removed by some lime-like substance. Let’s see - she happened to be so thin people often mistook her for a young boy, but was really a rich young English noble woman who slept with this guy who wanted to marry her for her money to see what sex was like. Not impressed, she ran away when he threatened to tell people so she’d have to marry him. Ended up part of some bombing plot where they dressed her like a boy. She somehow ends up separated from the bombers and taken to the Middle East where she’s sold to a sultan who’s a pedophile that prefers to rape little boys. He owns wives just for show.
She’s kept in a semi-drugged state, has this substance spread all over her to remove all her body hair. The sultan’s wives pluck at her pubic hair for a long period until I guess it starts coming off easily. So they bath her to wipe the rest of the hair away. She spends a lot of time in the bath for this portion of the book. While it’s never described there’s a suggestion that the sultan’s head wife has sex with her during these times because later the heroine thinks of the wife and her teeth on her nipples. At the end of the book the heroine runs off again with the hero to South America. And her pubic hair still hasn’t grown back in.
Isn’t it amazing what we remember even when we can’t remember the title? I also believe it seemed like she wasn’t really in love with the hero. He surely seemed to love her more than she did him. She was always so emotionally detached from everything.
AgTigress said on 09.06.11 at 06:58 PM • [link]
No, their real objection was cultural and aesthetic. Trust me on this, JamiSings.
Though circumcision simplifies good hygiene, cleanliness is certainly not precluded by leaving the male genitalia in their natural condition. But the Romans were fussy about frequent and thorough bathing anyway. In fact, it was the social institution of the public baths that made it certain that men would see each other naked in social situations, and would therefore be concerned about the appearance of their bodies and the conclusions that others would draw from seeing them.
In evolutionary terms, the prepuce protects the sensitive glans. This function in humans now devolves onto clothing, but the physical structures common to most mammals long pre-date hominids starting to walk on their hind legs, let alone fashioning clothes. But in any case, I don’t think that the fact that some part of the body is apparently ‘useless’ is, in itself, a good reason for cutting it off. Earlobes? Men’s nipples?
Kristina said on 09.06.11 at 09:38 PM • [link]
This a Diana Palmer. One of the Tyler series.
I remember loving this one when I was in high school and then years later realizing just how amazingly abusive and horrible this guy is.
Mina C. Lobo said on 09.10.11 at 10:42 PM • [link]
Steel Hymens = Most Excellent Band Name
Care to comment?
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