When I went looking for romance novels online I happened on a winner!
Nobody was more surprised than me. ( Now, this is light and crunchy brain snacks I'm talking about.) "Lord of Scoundrels" was everything it's title and cover art promised and so very much more. There was a lot of hot Victorian sex, there were harlots and pert behinds, plump breasts and ripping of bodices and exploring fingers finding dark curls, parting them to explore the wet, heated delights of...you get the picture. If you have to wait in line at the DMV, take a copy of this book with you. It's a lot of fun! Really!
And so I went on looking for another, emboldened by this initial success, and by gosh, there was A.N. Roquelaure, aka Anne Rice! Well well, thought I, she's tolerably readable, and so I came to open the pages of "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" which is a whole heapin' helping of WTF.
See, I had searched online for 'Spicy Romance Titles'.
This is not a spicy romance. This is a whole shitpile of spanking, is what this is.
I do not think that my intelligence has ever been so effectively assaulted by a book. One thing I now know about Sleeping Beauty that I would have never guessed in my youth? Underneath that pretty dress is a cast iron ass.
"Check this out," said Sleeping Beauty. All the woodland creatures were astonished. "So that's why she clangs when she runs," they thought. Then they all went to therapy.
This woman gets spanked, whipped, whipped and spanked, slapped, spanked, whipped, strapped, spanked, spanked, spanked and whipped and spanked...after awhile, you get 'paddle fatigue'. It's not just for rowing teams anymore.
Sleeping Beauty wakes up. Do not ask how, you do not want to know. She gets taken to a palace the size of Delaware. And in that palace are 3000 princes and princesses and an empress, and they are just nuts about spanking people. The usual BDSM stuff happens, but only as a kind of thin, modernist frame around all the goddamn spanking that goes on. No matter what you're doing, from hanging on a St. Anthony's cross catching a snooze (as you do) to high-stepping around in boots equipped with horseshoes, you will get spanked. Jammed onto the stone dong of a statue and left there for hours? Hung upside-down all night? Sodomized with a riding crop? You'll be getting spanked, too. Eating a sandwich? Repairing a lawnmower? Here comes Mr. Paddle. The shit never stops.
The place has a whole hostage class of slave/nobles, healthy young attractive people who perform most household chores with their teeth, all waiting to get spanked. Or being spanked, or spanking someone else who is being spanked. Why they put up with this shit is never explained. They too have cast iron asses. Everybody does. You can just tear up any random passer-by with a leather paddle for an hour in this joint and not only will they not bleed, they'll just weep, quietly. And then get spanked for weeping.
This is not about me being squicky about fetishes. This is me being appalled by the sheer LSD idiocy of this book.
And also appalled at myself for devouring it whole in one day.
Ok. Those certainly sound, huh interesting. Im just relieved sugar plums you didn't tell me Malificent showed up for a spank bank orgy. That would have really ruined one of my role models for me.
ReplyDeleteBWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAAA HAAA HA.....
You are a dafty!
ReplyDeleteThough I would still argue that soft porn and Romance are very different things!
Sx
nope, sorry. that is not romance, that's cruelty.
ReplyDeleteMistress Maddie: Go ahead. Laugh. I HAVE TO LIVE WITH THESE IMAGES, GURL. (Truthfully I was relieved too - Maleficent is the best thing about Sleeping Beauty! It would have been a shame to have run into her in this hot mess, swinging a whip, yawning...)
ReplyDeleteMs. Scarlet: You're right. I am a victim of my childhood here. When I grew up, a romance novel was a Harlequin Romance, and it was about a nurse/nanny/teacher who was trying to level up her social status by grabbing a man. 'Ew', I thought. Harlequin actually came up with the marketing term 'Spicy Romance', which was the above, with a little 'second base' action thrown in, so I THOUGHT I WAS SAFE. I am not sorry I read Beloved Savage or Savage Love or whatever that one was; sure, they got down, but there was that tease, that parry and dodge thing going on between man and woman. Fine. But to lump "Sleeping Beauty's Cast Iron Ass" in with 'Spicy Romance' - use the search term! It'll come up! Is like opening up your Halloween Bag full of candy and finding a velociraptor inside it!
ReplyDeleteanne marie in philly: Well...it's meant for a very specific audience, and it serves that audience as a romance, although poorly, in my opinion. BDSM is Consent Play. It was clear that Ms. Rice Did Not Get That At All. It was grotesque and absurd, like an exploitation movie, just the 'ick' factor and none of the mindset. I just kept turning the pages to find out what demented thing was going to happen next, because like I said, Anne Rice is readable. But it just kept NOT GETTING THE POINT.
ReplyDeleteRomance novels. Romance novels...? Hmmm... I don't think I can help with this. I read a Barbara Cartland novel once just for the hell of it - never again, though.
ReplyDeleteAs for spanking Sleeping Beauty - no. That does not sound romantic in the slightest. Perhaps Maleficent and the good fairies sent her and the kingdom to sleep for 100 years to allow their arses to recover?