Rant
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Erotica/Erotic Romance, Romance
Archetype: Blue Collar, Cop/Sheriff, Military
I received the following Book Rant from MoWeezy, who had a really, really difficult time reading Lora Leigh’s Nauti Temptress. Expect livid fury, unabated. With gifs!
…
Long time reader, first time caller and all that.
I wanted to tell you about a book that made me scream, throw my kindle, and metaphorically rend my garments.
I used to be a big fan of the Lora Leigh oeuvre. Sadly she’s long since gone off the rails, and I’ve returned to my first love of Regencies and Jennifer Cruisie. However, I read a Leigh recently that made me FLAME with anger.
Like this, pardon the swear:
Should have known from the title: Nauti Temptress. I thought I’d send it over to you so you could either tell me I’m crazy or if i’m crazy right.
Seriously this book made me so angry I winged my e-reader at my boyfriend screaming. Essentially there’s some really patriarchal “let’s shame the woman who makes choices for her body” that I had to keep checking that this was in fact by the same author of which I had read SO many books. Apologies if we differ on our viewpoints on abortion/my semi-flippant treatment here, this book just threw abortion/the morning after pill around so much it made me livid.
Point 1- The author refers to the morning after pill as an “abortion pill” multiple times. Medically incorrect. Granted, people shouldn’t look to romance novels as their medical advice but still. Research please. Or just leave it out.
Point 2 – Hero has sex with Heroine and doesn’t tell her that the condom breaks… for DAYS. (She’s a virgin and doesn’t realize it apparently)
Point 3 – Hero has sex with Heroine again, and doesn’t use a condom and then she freaks afterwards.
Point 4 – Hero essentially LOCKS Heroine in this house/ removes her ability to leave the property for 72 hours because that’s how long she has to take the morning after pill. Seriously, there are paragraphs devoted to his thought process here. This is where the screaming escalated.
This is the kicker- Heroine figures it out, and freaks out, NOT because she’s 24* (or so — I don’t know exactly, but LL prefaces this book with the Hero being at least 10+ years older) and her significantly older man is preventing her from getting medical assistance but because she can’t believe his first reaction would be (to assume) that HER first reaction would be to abort.
Especially because they have had NO conversation about this being anything other than casual sex. And she’s just recently lost her virginity. To him.
It’s not just this one section, but this hero’s hang ups with women having reproductive choices separate from what the men in their family would want, is just RAMPANT in this book. Not that I’m expecting a romance author whose male characters are predominately overbearing Type As to suddenly make them all hip with the feminists but seriously, I couldn’t deal with Leigh forcing this stuff down my throat. (hah. get it?)
It’s just weird seeing it from an author who has a whole series of books that revolve around man-wolf/coyote hybrids that have a biological imperative to have TEH BUTTSECKS with their “one true mates.”
Just wanted to see if you wouldn’t mind like to warning readers out there, who may be attempting to reconnect with Lora Leigh, since the first Nauti series was pretty good. There is no mention of this craziness in any of the Amazon reviews, or anywhere I could find in a quick Google search.
I wanted to warn the SBTB community that if they feel as I do re: women’s reproductive rights, they should not waste their $9.99. Unless they want to yell and throw things.
I never DNF a book, but this is the first one I had to force myself to finish.
The real thread that runs through this is my sadness at authors who are extremely prolific (Leigh, Kenyon, etc.) who have these crazy/amazing books or series that start, and then they continue them into this realm of just utter ridiculousness. The parts that I loved about the initial books get tainted with this formula, and they go downhill, and fast. I tend to read a new book and then go back and read the backlog of an author, and I’m usually surprised at how much I prefer the initial books to the ones that are still coming out (see Sherrilyn Kenyon). Combined with this obvious ploy at pushing an agenda — the Hero’s opinion on birth control and a women’s ability to make choices — it completely removes me from the story and it’s hard to even want to go back and read the inspiration for this novel, because my view of these characters has been so tainted. I’ve sworn I won’t buy another Lora Leigh ever again.
I think that’s what made me so rage-y, these original characters who were such fun romps (although the book’s not what I would categorize as a “romp” it’s just super fun and quick to read) get turned into caricatures in order to sell more books in the same series.
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“I just Googled “and show me you’ve grown a ten-inch dick at some point” and the Scribd for this book popped up, so I’m assuming its legit.”
This just made my day. Best googling ever.
Wow. I guess I don’t take my reads as seriously as others. I read the book. Didn’t like it as well as the rest of the Nauti series but still gave it a decent review. What the reviewer here ranted about didn’t even register much with me when I read it. It was just part of the story. It’s fiction. I may not agree with what the author has written but it is just a story. I don’t like every aspect of every book I’ve read but I’ve never thought “I don’t like how the author dealt with this subject! I’ll never read her again and no one else should either!” I just find that thought process excessive and slightly amusing.
The book does have a 3.8 rating on Goodreads, so I’m not the only one, apparently, who thought it was a decent read.
Well, if extremist agendas are realized and enforced, you might have the benefit of standing trial if you have a miscarriage. If a fetus has the full rights as people wouldn’t that be a homicide case? I mean, you might have had a secret abortion!
Are you insane?
I want to read the scene where she takes his virginity – and frankly, I hope she isn’t gentle.
Ha! Well, my two are novellas, so there’s that. It is obviously IMPOSSIBLE to have a feminist heroine for 90K. Around 80K she begins to melt from her wickedness, like the Nazi dude in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
lol
Men should be like kleenex. Soft, strong and disposable
OMG. That quote would’ve caused severe rage in me. Because being a big strong man with a ten inch dick (Why did he feel the need to measure it? Inferiority issues?) is what determines whether or not you have the say in “ridding” a woman of her virginity? Seriously?
She could’ve gone to a sex shop, gotten a nice long strap-on. Been like “I have a big dick and IT never goes limp. Beat that, asshole.”
Geez. Just. I can’t.
It also makes me wonder…if the “hero” were bi or homosexual, would he use that line on other men who had smaller dicks or maybe couldn’t work ten hour days in the freezing rain?
Excuse me while I go back to reading John Green novels.
OMFG. That is the craziest thing I’ve ever read. If this was April 1st, I would swear this was a joke. What makes this even more upsetting, I just read an article about the increase in forced impregnation as a form of domestic abuse. Some men are going as far as tearing out a woman’s IUD. (Which made me holler because I have one.)
I’m waiting for my husband to discover it in the history.
THIS is why I don’t have an e-reader! Paying to replace it everytime a book made me throw it at the wall would put me in the poor house. Spackle is much, much cheaper.
And on a tangential note: PBS just ran a fabulous program on the history of the women’s movement. Check it out. For those of you too young to have lived it, it should be eye opening. For those of us who were there – I’d forgotten just how much I wanted to bitch slap Phyllis Schafley into the 20th century.
Yes, I do understand that many comments are focused on the morning-after pill. I am responding to the reviewer’s general comments about the book, abortion and what she termed the heroine’s rights to reproductive choice.
Kim,
A miscarriage is the spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus; abortion is the forced expulsion or termination of a human fetus. If you fail to appreciate the difference, I suggest you speak with a woman who has suffered a miscarriage.
Regarding legal rights, in many places, fetuses do have “rights as people.” Currently, 38 states have fetal homicide laws, to address the issue of fetuses killed by violent acts against pregnant women. In international law, the American Convention on Human Rights of 1969 states that people have rights from the moment of conception.
“THIS is why I don’t have an e-reader! Paying to replace it everytime a book made me throw it at the wall would put me in the poor house. Spackle is much, much cheaper.”
That’s why you keep a beat up paperback on hand, wall bang by proxy.
“what she termed the heroine’s rights to reproductive choice”
Egads.
Speechless over here.
Actually, not quite.
So, in your eyes, it’s okay to deprive someone of her freedom, just in case she decides she would rather not get pregnant? The rights of a hypothetical fetus completely obliterate the rights of the perfectly real woman?
And (trying to keep this about the book instead of the very real world), please do keep in mind that this particular male protagonist didn’t have a clue whether the female protagonist would or would not want to get pregnant. Without taking the time to ask, he preemptively made the decision for her.
Betty, I do know how the morning-after pill works and I was not suggesting it is an abortifacient. As I mentioned to AztecLady (above) I was addressing the general review. It gets difficult to consistently hear of women’s reproductive choices without also hearing of women’s reproductive responsibilities.
My original comments refer to the hero’s criminally irresponsible behavior; so, no, I’m not suggesting there’s anything ok about his actions. But, back to the review, ” Point 3 – Hero has sex with Heroine again, and doesn’t use a condom and then she freaks afterwards.”
So the 24-year-old heroine CHOOSES to again have sex with this untrustworthy man after he locks her up, and she is SURPRISED at the lack of a condom? Really? Where is her sense of responsibility? Clearly, he doesn’t have one.
So if a woman has a one night stand, using a condom and the condom breaks, and she wants to take the morning after pill to avoid conception, she is irresponsible and therefore she should have the choice taken from her, leaving her to face the potentially life long consequences of a night of bad judgement.
But if the guy has a one night stand, using a condom and the condom breaks, he is irresponsible and has to face no consequences.
Gotcha.
@LSUReader—first of all, I’m an adherent of consistent ethic of life, so I have some sympathies with your irritation at the heroine.
But I think that you are reading things into this book—and this review—that are not there.
Point the First: “Hero has sex with heroine again” does not imply TO ME (especially in the context of his described domineering, abusive, and criminal behavior) necessarily that “the heroine CHOOSES to have sex” with OR without a condom; and since he used a condom at their first encounter, it seems a naive but not entirely unjustified assumption that he would take some responsibility in the future.
(Of course, if you have read the book and recall the passage where the heroine begs, “No, skip the latex and do me bareback, baby, I want to be pumped full of your virile love juice!”, I will defer to your greater knowledge.)
Point the second: the reviewer explicitly objects to the lack of “women having reproductive choices separate from what the men in their family would want.” In other words, she also objects to PRECISELY the lack reproductive “responsibility” you wish to see.
For when women are not deemed capable of making their own choices, they cannot be considered free to be “responsible” for their own bodies, let alone for any possible potential offspring.
[In theological terms, if you like, without free will there is NEITHER sin NOR merit—nor possibility of grace.]
Or, what hapax just said.
I used to really enjoy Lora Leigh, until I read a book in which the heroine (some kind of spy) was tortured. Actually tortured, as a plot device to give her some kind of cachet. That was pretty much the end for me, and when the Breeds book came out with the missing and unedited scenes, I wasn’t interested enough anymore to try.
This one sounds just appalling, and yet, sadly, not surprising.
And it does illustrate that a lot of anti-abortion people are having a completely different conversation from pro-autonomy people. They think it’s all about the rights of the potential baby, when it’s really about the right of a woman to bodily autonomy.
If anti-abortion activists put as much energy as the use to shame women for having sex into increasing access to adequate sex education, birth control, and economic support for single parents, the incidents of abortion would go way, way down. But they don’t, and they therefore have no credibility with me.
I can’t tell if the way you are misquoting my comments is deliberate, or not. So, I’ll just say good night, AztecLady.
Hapax, I have not read the book. After reading this review, I did visit the author website and Amazon, wondering if they would reveal anything redeeming about the heroine. I was disappointed.
Point 1: Perhaps I am reading too much into these three sources, but I do not believe she was raped. I stand by my view of her having made a choice.
Point 2: You quoted the reviewer “explicitly objects to the lack of ‘women having reproductive choices separate from what the men in their family would want,’” as a reviewer objection to a lack of reproductive responsibility. I read “this hero’s hang ups with women having reproductive choices separate from what the men in their family would want…” as the reviewer stating these women do have their own reproductive choices and the hero isn’t happy with that idea.
Theologically, I agree we use free will to choose between good or evil. But I believe grace is a gift from God; it cannot be earned.
Your comments are there for everyone to read in their entirety—there’s a handy link to them in each of my replies, so there’s no risk of my “misquoting” them to deceive anyone reading the thread.
What I am doing is vehemently disagreeing with what I read in your comments, and more and more so with each successive comment—much as, it seems to me, you do with mine.
Good night to you.
“It gets difficult to consistently hear of women’s reproductive choices without also hearing of women’s reproductive responsibilities. “
And what would those be, pray? To stay pregnant even if you’re impregnated by force, poor judgement, mistake, or fraud? To bear an unwanted child so that you, LSUReader, can sleep smug and tight with the knowledge that Jesus loves all the little children, even if he doesn’t pay child maintenance?
Perhaps our responsibility is biological destiny. I bleed, therefore I breed?
Bollocks to all that. I had an abortion when I was 29 because I was – and remain – utterly unfit to raise a child, because my mother was utterly unfit to raise a child. I sure as hell wasn’t going to perpetuate the cycle of abuse and fucked up offspring because I had some ‘reproductive responsibility’ to something inside me which I didn’t want, didnt know it existed, didn’t care if I existed, and was, at that point, no more a person than my liver.
If you’re so gung ho on responsibility and hating on abortion, then you make sure you don’t have one. The rest of us can make our own minds up.
Thank you Ann Somerville.
I just cannot leave well enough alone. *sigh* There is always going to be a disconnect between LSUReader and the pro-choice people. For pro-choice folks the fetus (and still less the embryo) is not a person. LSUReader believes that it IS a person. There is no common ground for discourse, based solely on the rights of the individual we sure as tootin’ know to be a person, AKA the woman who is gravid, because LSUreader sees two people with equal rights there. Of course, the fact the US courts have ruled unequivocally that the gov cannot force anyone to have their bodily autonomy infringed upon (such as donate a kidney or even giving blood) even when the life of a child will be lost without that involuntary donation, would indicate that the primacy of the rights of the individual are set in stone unless that individual has a uterus, which is treating fertile women as inherently unequal before the law. That’s a bit unfair. However, I suspect LSUreader has a teleological reason for supposing the personhood of the embryo/fetus, using the belief of ensoulation at conception to equate the rights of the embryo/fetus to the rights to the mother. In which case I would like to point out that: “The Bible contains over 600 laws governing everything from fabrics to how to cut a beard yet contains no law prohibiting abortion. Jesus never mentioned it. As the Oxford Companion to the Bible notes: Biblical legislation, as in Leviticus 27:3-7, indicates that the lives of children as well as women were not valued as highly as those of adult men, while no value whatsoever was given to a child under the age of one month. There is no indication that a fetus had any status.” (Abortion article, page 4) http://fayfreethinkers.com/tra… Additionally, more than 800 of every 1000 fertilized eggs do not make it to the fetal stage (12 weeks). If those fertilized eggs have souls, what are the theological arguments behind such a radical number of “failed” people? It seems as if both legal and theological arguments in favor of the personhood of a fetus are built on a shaky ground of presumed and word of mouth “facts”.
“There is always going to be a disconnect between LSUReader and the pro-choice people. For pro-choice folks the fetus (and still less the embryo) is not a person. LSUReader believes that it IS a person.”
I will add to your evidence – or lack of evidence from the bible – with this link:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/s…
“In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal.
Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.
Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it does.
That’s new. If you had asked American evangelicals that same question the year I was born you would not have gotten the same answer.”
I’m older than you and I have been “serious” about my religion from a very early age, thus I remember when the narrative started. The result was that 1) I eventually became Episcopalian and 2) I always go looking for the source material.
—> For those of us who were there – I’d forgotten just how much I wanted to bitch slap Phyllis Schafley into the 20th century.
THIS.
I make it a point not to discuss religion in public spaces, real or virtual. I like to hope that (on a good day!) my faith informs my words and actions, but I never want it to be a source of divisiveness or label that causes pre-conceived notions (negative or positive) about me. But religious beliefs are almost always at the heart of the Choice argument, so I don’t know that it can be ignored.
I’m sure that I’m opening myself to getting picked apart from every angle. But this is one of the few online forums that I read because I’m always struck by the intelligence, thoughtfulness, and compassion of the members of the Bitchery. (And cuz it’s a hoot!)
So here goes….
Every single contributor to this thread is anti-abortion. If there is such a thing as an individual who is “pro-abortion”—I’ve never met this person. Abortion is invariably, without exception, a tragedy. No one dances in the street when a woman has an abortion. Planned Parenthood doesn’t put out signs cheerfully proclaiming “Over 20 Million Aborted”. No woman walks out of an abortion clinic exhilarated to have acted on her empowered reproductive choices.
We can ALL agree that less abortion is a good thing, and the need for no abortions would be the best of all, however unrealistic that hope is.
On a political level, I am a Christian who vehemently believes in the right to choice, as well as the separation of church and state. To be pro-choice means to accept that the state offers a freedom to its citizens to act in a way that may be unacceptable to me personally. It means being respectful of the beliefs (or lack thereof) of others, even if I don’t share those beliefs. I’m also grateful to live in a society that allows me to freely practice my faith, and to conduct my own reproductive life as I see fit.
On a personal level, I believe that abortion is a sin. But I also believe it is a sin to not love my neighbor and a sin to impose my religious beliefs on others. The choice to have an abortion is between a woman and her conscience and her God. And if God has a problem with it s/he can take it up with that woman. But my faith also believes in the never-ending forgiveness of a loving God. A God who has compassion for us even when we have to make painful choices in a difficult world.
Women have abortions for myriad reasons, ranging from non-consensual sex, medical issues, poverty, failed birth control, lack of access to birth control or accurate information about its use, adolescent impulsiveness, and a million more reasons, up to and including, the general lazy sluttiness that seems to be the stereotypical cause for all unwanted pregnancies.
Each woman has her own line in the sand for when an abortion would be acceptable. For me, personally, it would be have to be an extreme medical situation that threatened my child. I’m not talking the abortion of a “less than perfect” child, but an abortion that would prevent my child from living a life filled with pain. If faced with that choice, I would hope that I had the strength to take what I believe to be a sin on my shoulders to prevent my child from suffering.
Of the two dozen or so women that I personally know who’ve had abortions, most of them did not have abortions in situations that were even remotely close to my own personal line in the sand. But each one of those women still deserved my compassion and support. Some of these women are close friends who I supported directly throughout their experience. I gave them my full compassion and support, even when they made choices that would have been personally unacceptable for me.
Those women have included other Christians, Jews, pagans, agnostics, and atheists. Each of them had regrets about this terrible choice, and struggled painfully to make that choice, but every single one of them believes that she made the only acceptable choice for herself and her situation.
And that’s the point. I’m not going to pass judgment on a woman whose shoes I’ve never walked in. If I had had a child as a teenager, my child and I would have had the complete support of my parents, no matter how disappointed they were in my actions. Unlike teenaged friends of mine who were kicked out of their homes. And I’m fortunate that I’ve never had an unwanted pregnancy while in an abusive relationship. Unlike my best friend, whose child would have tied her to her abuser, who eventually attempted to act on threats to her life and the lives of her family. I’m so very fortunate that the one pregnancy I’ve had was not only wanted, but hoped and prayed for.
And, as a Christian, I don’t believe that death is the worst possible state. My faith tells me that the life of the soul is far more important than the life of the body. I believe that embryos and fetuses have souls. And I believe that whether a child dies before or after death, their little soul returns to the peace and protection of the Divine. I fear more for the well-being of the children who are born into lives of abuse, neglect, or resentment.
Abortion may be a cause for sadness, but it isn’t a cause for anger. We all need to come to a place of compassion for both the unborn and for their mothers (and fathers, for women are not always the only ones who suffer under this choice).
We all have important work to do to prevent unnecessary abortions, but it has nothing to do with picketing clinics or shouting angry words across the ether. It has everything to do with helping to support knowledge of and access to birth control; protecting our girls and women from incest, rape, and abuse; teaching our sons and daughters to respect their own bodies and those of others; giving at-risk girls the knowledge of and access to other opportunities in life besides teenaged motherhood; becoming adoptive parents or supporting others who adopt; and an endless list of other positive ways in which we can reduce the need for abortion at the individual and societal level.
In the argument about choice, there are many, many of us—atheists, agnostics, and people of various faiths—who see the shades of gray. Unfortunately, our voices seem to get drowned out because gray is a complicated shade, and doesn’t lend itself well to sound bites or posterboard slogans.
Ellielu,
you make a very wrong assumption: I am pro-abortion. I have worked at an abortion clinic, I do not believe that there is such a thing as a wrong abortion and I believe an unwanted child is a greater cause for sadness than a woman choosing not to have a child she doesn’t want.
And I consider myself quite spiritual and God loving. I also would never deem “general lazy sluttiness” a reason women have abortions. So glad you don’t consider yourself judgmental.
THIS IS FEMINISM.
Thank you for being so articulate on such an explosive issue.
Namaste, ellielu
“Every single contributor to this thread is anti-abortion.”
Assuming you can read my mind, or anyone else’s, was your first mistake
“If there is such a thing as an individual who is “pro-abortion”—I’ve never met this person.”
Hi, I’m Ann, nice to meet you. Or not
“Abortion is invariably, without exception, a tragedy.”
Oh BULLSHIT. No, it’s not. For me, it was liberation. I’d make the same choice again, only faster. The only ‘trauma’ inflicted by it was beforehand as I tried to process 12 years of Catholic indoctrination, and my own screwed up feelings about possibly being a mother.
Some abortions are sad. When a woman who desperately wants a child, finds out her foetus won’t survive, and she has to terminate to save her life and spare it suffering, that’s awful.
And abortions performed in back alleys with coat hangers – yeah, that’s a tragedy.
Safe, legal abortions in the first trimester? Perfectly fine, perfectly okay. Not a tragedy. Just a medical procedure and part of a woman’s ability to determine her own future.
“No woman walks out of an abortion clinic exhilarated to have acted on her empowered reproductive choices.”
You should have met me when I woke up after the surgery (no chemical abortions in my day, sadly). I felt like the weight of the world had come off my shoulders. I was *happy*.
“We can ALL agree that less abortion is a good thing, and the need for no abortions would be the best of all, however unrealistic that hope is.”
Stop speaking for anyone but yourself, you smug judgemental Christian. I can imagine what kind of support you offered women with your silent hatred of their ‘sin’. TRust me, you aren’t as clever or covert as you think you are.
“our voices seem to get drowned out”
Funny, I hear people like you all the time. Wish I didn’t because what you say is insulting, wrong, and frankly, disturbing.
“THIS IS FEMINISM.”
No, it’s propaganda. More of the same drivel forcefed into me as a kid.
“I’m older than you”
How do you know?
I was born in 72 … for some reason I thought you were born after that. My bad.
—> For those of us who were there – I’d forgotten just how much I wanted to bitch slap Phyllis Schafley into the 20th century.
—>THIS.
God, yes. Phyl was the purest definition of Selfish Hypocrite.
Vile. Truly vile.
Heh, no, I’m ten years older than you 🙂
I also would never deem “general lazy sluttiness” a reason women have abortions. So glad you don’t consider yourself judgmental.
What I read in Ellielu’s comment was that she was speaking about stereotypes trotted out to shame women who might need or have an abortion, not that she thought women who have abortions are “lazy sluts”. As someone real tired of people who want to impose their religious beliefs on non-believers, I appreciate any Christian (or Muslim or Shintoist or…) who recognizes we don’t all believe in the same god(s) or even any god and we all have the right, under the law, to freedom of religion and freedom to choose to have an abortion.
I’m also pro-abortion and I think there are a lot more women who are not traumatized by the experience of having an abortion than are willing to come out and admit it publicly. I think this has a lot to do with the culture of shame surrounding abortion rather than actual regret. And while I’m glad I’ve never been in the position to need an abortion, I don’t think I would regret it or suffer devastating emotional consequences.
Let me tell you what I hope a real women indepedent women today would do. Once she figured out this man was locking her up, she would go and grab her pepper spray that looks like a lipstick (from her really cute bag that she paid for herself) walk over to this a-hole and get him strait in the eyes. After this she would proceed to leave to go to the police station or call the police. After filing a report she would decide if SHE wanted to take the morning after pill or not, and do whatever SHE considered right. Of course I have never read this book so I do not now if he had a gun or was violent. But, from what I have read about him he does not seem that violent or even clever.