Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
SBD: Dangerous Ideas
Americans like to fight over dangerous ideas. Evolution, there’s a good one. God help us if we could have gotten here without God, you know? Democracy is another dangerous idea. See: Lamont vs. Lieberman and all the fear-fallout that occurred when the people’s candidate won the primary.
But this isn’t about politics. This is about another set of dangerous ideas, ideas that go largely unchallenged by the fundamentalists, that permeate our supermarkets, our libraries, our bookstores. Ideas that threaten the family, people!
I’m talking about that most insidious of genres, ROMANCE.
Here’s what we need plastered over every last romance novel.
To save your eyesight, the text reads,
Warning: the Surgeon General has Determined that Romance Novels are Dangerous to Your Mental and Emotional Health, Such As It Is. You’ve Been Warned, Sucker.
Look how attractive and unobtrusive this sticker is.
Ever since I began reading and writing romance, my brain has been churning. I’m seeing things that don’t exist, thinking about people and places in new ways. I’m having a hard time separating warm fantasy from cold reality.
Science Fiction never did this to me. Philip K. Dick may have been the master of the reality-bending novel, but his books never made me flush, splash cold water on my face, look in the mirror, and think, What the hell just happened?
I dunno, maybe it’s a guy thing. Maybe the label should read Warning to Men. Maybe women already understand this stuff is fantasy, mind candy, a temporary diversion from life’s bullshit and not the promise of what could be.
All I know is, I’ve hit the last fifty pages of Jennifer Crusie’s Crazy for You and I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to go play World of Warcraft. SheWitch is gonna go to Silithus, take off all her robes, and dance naked among the stonelash scorpids.*
D.
*and get killed in, oh, about five seconds.
As far as I’m concerned, this wins best SBD Award for August, heck maybe the whole summer.
Rip my bodice, mother fucker.
And mine!
This is why I had to quit reading romance novels when in my teens – I discovered it was coloring my view of relationships.
History books aren’t as bad about that.
I finished Crazy for You last night. Cool book — interesting juxtaposition of suspense (supplied by the nutjob ex-boyfriend) and Crusie’s usual good-humored romance. The sex scenes were well-written without feeling overwritten (well, only about 10% of the time did I feel like reminding her to use a period and cut all the ‘ands’).
But the hero, for me, was not believable. Maybe there really are guys out there who can separate love from sex, and indeed separate them with an almost fanatical sense of purpose, but to me this felt like caricature and not reality. But that’s just me. I think sex without love is masturbation. Mutual masturbation if there happens to be someone helping things along, but it’s still masturbation.
Hi Doug,
I have an off subject Q for you and I couldn’t find your email address, so hope it’s ok to ask here.
I have a friend who is trying to switch (or integrate?) from blogger to wordpress. He askd me to help and wrote … … I’ve downloaded WordPress … can you give me a clue as to getting it up and running with the blogspot interface? Will I need to upgrade my blogspot account from a basic one?
I don’t know anything about wordpress, though. Can you explain it to me? Thanks a lot 🙂
Crystal
Gotcha emailed, Crystal 😉 If anyone else is curious, here’s where most of my wisdom is locked away:
Yeah, right here.
What, you like reality?!
Hmmph. You totally didn’t mention Crusie’s great choice of name for the heroine’s best friend.
Hm. And what name would that be, DARLA?