I’ve been staring at my computer screen all day reading about the horrendous details of the Colorado shooting that occurred this morning. I can’t take it anymore, so I’ve decided to write a blog entry about something I have been wanting to vent about for a while. It has nothing to do with the housewives, but everything to do with housewives.
Two months ago, my Book Club (Barbie’s Dream Book Club, Book Club BarbieTM) chose 50 Shades of Grey as our book of the month. Before that, we read thought-provoking books about women’s strength in adversity such as She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I was surprised when we chose 50 Shades, as I had heard some tidbits about it and wondered what sort of a discussion it would render. Don’t get me wrong, those of you who know me personally know I have NO problem discussing sex in blushing detail (sorry Mom), but I also don’t like to waste my reading on crap books, so I wondered how good this one was given all the hype.
When I began reading, as I writer, I was completely turned off. For starters, I did not relate to the main character at all, or any characters for that matter. Anastasia is a hum drum, wah wahhhh college senior who happens to meet this mysterious guy when her roommate who was supposed to interview him comes down with a cold and sends her in her place. None of these characters have much depth at all, and for a journalist wannabe, a twenty-something millionaire, and someone who is supposed to be at least smart enough to get through college, they have painfully limited vocabularies.
Let me touch on that really quick because I’m not going to give you a full plot run-through, especially since I only got about 1/3 into the book before cursing it and throwing it out the damn window of my Dreamhouse. I’m about to give you a rundown on the vocabulary that nearly drove me insane. You are not ready for this, but read on anyway. Actually make yourself a cocktail, I’ll wait.
Ready?
1. The word “muttered.” Someone might mutter once in a book. Someone does not mutter thirty-nine times in the first 127 pages of a book. It’s called a thesaurus Ms. James, and if you can’t think of a different way to say the same thing, it can really come in handy. I had to read about “She muttered this,” and “He muttered that,” and then they muttered to each other, and then he muttered to her “sex” (we’ll get to that in a moment) and then the sheep muttered to the other sheep, “I don’t want to be mutton,” and then I muttered to my razor blade, “Kill me if I have to hear the word ‘muttered’ again.” The word muttered is NOT sexy. It’s not tingle-provoking, it doesn’t make me wonder or lust. It makes me want to say, “What?!?! What the fuck did you say??? SPEAK UP.” You would have thought this guy was Rain Man with all the gawddamn muttering he did.
2. The word “sex” used in place of any other synonym for vagina. What.The.Fuck. you guys. One of my main issues with this Anastasia chick is that she’s not only a virgin at the age of 24 (let’s face it, that’s weird) but she also talks like she’s five years old until she starts doing the nasty after which she says things that would make even the most seasoned porn star gasp in horror (apparently, I didn’t actually make it that far). So when she first starts having this Christian dude put his P in her V, she calls her V her sex as in:
“And then he moved his mouth down my stomach and began to blow softly up my sex.” (Not an actual quote, but it’s something pretty close to that)
Your what?? He blew into your who?? I mean, last time you were in that -ahem- position, were you like, “Yeah, yeah, give it to me right in my sex!” NO ONE SAYS THAT. How am I supposed to be turned on by this when I’m trying to figure out why in the holiest of all hells she’s calling her vagina her sex?!? That’s not all you guys, which brings me to number three.
3. Anastasia’s “inner- goddess.” This is also her vagina folks. You heard me.
I admit I didn’t even get to the sadomasochistic sex because I couldn’t read this woman’s HORRIBLE writing, not one more word of it. I did get through some of the “vanilla” sex which was unpleasant (see #1, 2, & 3) and I did get to “The Contract.” If you read this atrocity, you know what I’m referring to.
The mysterious 28 year old (was he 29? 27? Who gives a shit) uber wealthy businessman Anastasia decides to give up her virginity to after waiting her whole life, digs the whole S&M thing almost as much if not more than Rhianna. He only has unattached sex with women who will sign a contract giving him three months of their lives to act as the “Submissive” to his “Dominant.” This contract is 50 Shades of WHACK. She has to eat a ton of healthy food, not drink any booze (the audacity of him to ask her to let him beat her senseless with a belt without any booze in her system!), get eight hours of sleep every night, do ANYTHING he says when he says to do it, and not talk to other men at all ever. It’s pretty much like being in prison, minus the health food part. And she signs it. See why I can’t relate to this woman? She holds out on sex until her knight in shining armor rides in on his white horse, and gives her a contract saying he can put it anywhere he wants and shove a hedgehog up her butt if it so strikes his fancy. How utterly romantic.
But I digress. My point is, why is this so hot again? Is it the nipple clamps? Is it the butt plugs?? Ladies, can we at least set higher standards on the writing in our chosen smut novels??? Can we demand the term “muttered” just never be used? I’m perplexed as to why, in this day and age, this book is making the author (who by the way said on national television that her readers were basically horny idiots) something like 25 million dollars a week. Should I write a smut book about S&M? Is it the S&M that is getting these housewives so hot and bothered? Should I just write:
“And then he muttered into her sex, ‘I’m going to put the nipple clamps on now,” and then she muttered, ‘Yes, nipple clamps.” * standing ovation*
I would just luuuurve to make 25 million dollars a week and move Ken and I to some private island in the Caribbean where we can nipple clamp each other until they fall off and we use them as big game fishing bait. Barbie’s Dream Island- nipple clamps sold separately.
And this brings me to my actual point. I’m concerned that between this gawd-awful book and the movie “Magic Mike,” my fellow womenfolk are not having enough real life sex, or at least not enjoying it enough. You should have seen the outpouring of luuuurve on my Facebook page from all the ladies for the male-stripper movie starring Dumb and Dumber. Ladies, men out there, real ones with real-life penises, would LOVE to be having sex with you. You can do the same thing Anastasia did with Captain Disturbia. You can! There are all kinds of dudes out there willing to get weird. And we have the internet now so you don’t even have to put any effort into finding them! The odd thing for me are the women who have men at home, who would rather read about sex than have it. Really ladies? Do women not like actual sex as much as they like the idea of sex? Is it that the fantasy is all too often much better than the reality? Is that it?? Are you not getting what you want? Take a page out of Christian Grey’s book and write out a contract, draw the lines clearly. Men don’t understand subtle hints.
I see nothing attractive about men dancing around naked. I can’t remember if Ken’s ever danced around naked for me, but if he has, I guarantee we were laughing hysterically. Has feminism swung too far to the other side of the pendulum to where we want to objectify men as they have objectified us for centuries? Does that give us a feeling of power? I saw a picture of Channing Tatum when he was actually a stripper (yep, he used to be an actual male stripper) and he looked about 50 Shades of meth-ed out. Not hawt.
Please note these are only my opinions and that I’m not judging any of you. I know it sounds like I’m judging, but I’m made of plastic so try not to worry too much about it. Some of my dearest friends ranted and raved about these sources of entertainment. Even Skipper (who is a brilliant and completely rational person who I luuuuuuuuuurve) begged me, pleaded with me to go to the midnight showing of “Magic Mike” (Sidenote: I’m never going to a movie theater again). A MIDNIGHT SHOWING. Do you know what Ken would have done had I told him I wanted to go see a midnight showing of “Magic Mike”?
He probably would have done a naked silly dance as he nipple-clamped me to the bed and issued me a good flogging because THAT my friends is what you need when you think you need to see sweaty guys flinging around their junk in the middle of the night.
To the middle aged housewives out there spending quality time in the bath tub reading about Christian Grey’s rules while sipping on a glass of wine that your husband brought you: Have filthy, raunchy sex with your husband. He’d love that, and I guarantee afterwards you won’t give two shits about any muttering or anyone else’s inner goddess but yours.
I realize that I did not see “Magic Mike” and I did not read all of 50 Shades of Grey, nor did I read the other two books in the series which my lady friends swear are better than the first. Since I am not going to see “Magic Mike” in this lifetime, and I’m never picking up 50 Shades of anything ever again, it was kind of now or never on this. Also, it did take my mind off of the fact that sometimes this world is so ugly and tragic that you just want to read a lousy smut book, or watch some unintelligible naked guys dance. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, now I get it.
XO,
Barbs
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