Super heros vs. romance

I started this post as a reply to Jenny Trout’s article No, romance novels are not all the same, but thanks for offering your uneducated, unsolicited opinion, and then brought it here to expand into a full article.  While I agree with the gist of the article–that the romance genre gets more flack than it deserves these days, one of Jenny’s comments started my groggy sick-and-still-waking-up brain thinking about why.  It’s a sentiment I’ve heard before:

[Superhero comics are] a largely male-dominated genre, defended to the death by a largely male-dominated audience who are just as passionate in pointing out the differences between their favorite heroes as romance readers are in pointing out the abundant variances in their genre. Yet, only the former has reached a place of pop-culture relevance that earns it respect.

Jenny’s far from the first person I’ve seen use superheroes as a contract against romance to show sexism.  This is just the first time I’ve really felt compelled to say something about it.

The explanation usually given, and that Jenny touches on, is male writers mean more success.  Very often that is true.  It’s almost like society is surprised a man can string two words together, but I digress.  When it comes to superheroes versus romance, I don’t think it’s the sex of the authors.  After all, one of the examples given, of Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook has never come close to the popularity of any of the Marvel or DC films or books either (it does help the comic side that they’re all franchised, and so have the same people paying for multiple movies).  The Notebook can’t hold a candle to the popularity of…and this physically pains my fingers just thinking about typing it…the psuedo romance that is Twilight, and the abuse-as-romance that is Fifty Shades.  Pardon me while I go have a cry and scream into a pillow….

Now a man wrote The Notebook, but the majority of fans are still women.  Should we blame male-readers for their lack of interest, even when a man writes the book?  I don’t think the typical woman cares the gender of the romance author.  And I know no one today cares that one of the most famous monsters of all time, Frankenstein, was created by a woman.

Ultimately the difference in popularity between superheroes and romance doesn’t have to do with the gender or sex of the writers, and everything to do with some major differences between the superhero and romance genres.  It has nothing to do with the superhero field being male-dominated.  It as a very, very high number of female adherents too!  And the romance genre is dominated by women, with little appeal to men.  Let’s look at some of the differences:

One major, MAJOR difference right off the bat is that superhero stories have a lot more franchise-potential.  The same characters can be reused in countless storylines, and there are more products to buy per title.  The villains can return, and new ones can be created.  But you can only squeeze so much out of anything having to do with romance.  Twilight lasted for four books and overstayed any resemblance of welcome with five movies, and even a lot of the hardest-core fans ended up feeling that was too much.  When you franchise, you get the same people to buy more than one book, to see more than one movie, to buy more than one Blu-Ray special edition with bonus features, and you can sell more t-shirts, costume pieces, and board games.  Marvel has put out twelve, TWELVE, movies using the Avengers in the last seven years, and eleven more planned for the next four years.  Superheroes are just plain more versatile, and it’s more fun to read about/hear about/watch their next battle than it is to go down the line in a group of romance characters as they get their turn.  Nora Roberts has managed to drag the same cast with multiple romances out to three books, as she did with the Dream trilogy, and that’s plenty.  Three books with the potential for, at most, three movies, is nothing compared to how many movies you can get out of The Avengers or Batman.  By the very nature of superhero movies, there’s going to be more to buy.

And when there are franchises, there will be merchandise galore to help keep fans hooked.  Costumes are big, figurines, art-of books, just so much else!  Keeping people actively involved is really how you turn something from having a fandom (like Twilight) into an impactful part of pop culture (though not part of either genre, the Harry Potter books are a perfect example).  How many costumes are there from Twilight or Fifty Shades?  How many items from books like them can be turned into figurines or jewelry or bookends?  The sterling silver flogger pendants didn’t have a chance, and, even though there were a few pretty things from Twilight, like replicas of Bella’s wedding hair bomb, most items aren’t easily identifiable, even to other fans.  So they aren’t changing how people accessorize themselves.  They are dated, and ultimately fizzle out.

But romance?  Each story has a limited shelf life, and then you’ve for to find something new.  The Avengers have a dozen movies, but Twilight managed five, and that’s a lot.  Story over.  Now the process has to restart to find a new set of character liked on a large scale.  Marvel will dump a lot of money into advertising something Avengers since there’s already an existing audience.  Why should any company want to take much of a risk with a romance?  Avengers proved themselves prior to any money-dump.  It just happened long-ago enough that it’s easy to think it didn’t happen.  We’re watching modern romances have to prove themselves now, which makes it look unfair.

The one and only real exception to books holding on to audiences without wide-scale merchandise are Jane Austen’s books, and even those are helped along by reenactors participating in festivals…in costume. Myself included.  Yes, costumes matter.  They help readers/watchers connect with the characters and the books’ worlds in a very physical way.  Merchandise and costumes help make it all more real to people, but you can’t pull sex toys and special event and background items, and expect to find success in merchandising.  E.L. James has tried, and it’s embarrassing.

It’s easier for parents to share the excitement with their children, effectively turning adults into advertisers of the genre and hooking the next generation.  I can share my love of Thor and Jem (original cartoon, which my daughter just turned on) with my daughter, but how can I share the Bow Street Runners with her?  Star Wars is a piece of cake.  Heroes!  Villains!  No sex scenes, which almost every romance has!  Twilight faded to black, making it one of the rare non-Christian romances to nix sex scenes.  I can’t give my daughter Lady Chatterly’s Lover, but can take her to see the next Star Wars movie.

Those alone show a lot of differences between the romance and super hero genre. That they’re both most prevalent in different media accounts for a lot of the difference in why one genre is larger in pop culture while the other isn’t, as is the sharability and the franchising.  I can buy a book for $15 and share it with a few friends.  That $18.50 I paid for a movie ticket is only good for one person one time.  And, in today’s busy world, it’s easier to turn on the Iron Man movie for a couple hours than it is to find enough uninterrupted time to concentrate on the new book I just bought.  I can also watch a movie while I’m working on a commission, but reading and sewing can’t be multi-tasked together.

But even if they were all books and would never be turned into movies, there are still some important differences.

Being a super hero is something you DO whereas falling in love is something that happens to you. This makes being a super hero an active choice.  Books where the protagonists are actively doing something rather than responding to the passive things that happen to them tend to be more exciting.  No, moving to a small town and meaning Johnny DoReMi and not wanting to fall in love isn’t a protag being active in regards to the main storyline.  The protag is responding to it.  Now there’s nothing wrong with these (and I used to be a big reader of ol’ Harlequins myself, and have read almost everything Nora Roberts and Lisa Kleypas have written), but they lack the adrenaline rush that helps hook more readers.

None of us will ever have the superhuman god-like powers (or super tools Batman has) that super heroes do, but most of us will experience the love of romance. There’s ultimately more fantasy-fuel in the typical super hero book because of this.  Romance tends to reflect things most of us can identify with and, frankly, relationships can be stressful in a way a lot of us can personally identify with, and sometimes the contrast between the perfect male love-interest and a reader’s real-life dying relationship can be hard.  But even on our worst days, many, many, many people enjoy a mental break where they’re saving the day and being adored, and this usually happens with super powers.  How can you fear harm if you’re stronger than iron and faster than the fastest bullet?  But on a low self-esteem day, the praise that comes with saying the world, or at least the city, can be a nice boost, even if it’s mental.  It’s the superhero identity we all carry around.  No one else can see it, but at least we know we could stop that underworld god from making the state bow to him.  We so could stop him.

Books are often mental vacations, a chance to leave our regular lives for a short time. When a lot of romances in some way reflect so many of our own lives (learning to fall in love again after being hurt, entering a relationship that could come with consequences that there shouldn’t be), it’s like taking a weekend trip to the next city over while super hero books are so much grander and full of adventure and accolades than out regular lives, and so are more like taking a dream vacation around the world, all expenses paid.

There are also fewer super hero books out there, but romances are a dime a dozen. It’s easy to look down on a genre when you’ve got a higher chance of picking up a super hero book that’s worth the money than you do of one that’s a let-down, and a higher chance of picking up a romance that is painfully formulaic and dull rather than one of the good ones. The romance-mill books with bodice-ripper covers sold as “special three books in 1!” for the “bargain” price of $1 (quotes, because those books are meant to go to the bargain bin) often outnumber the well-written ones. Basically it’s the equivalent of clothes made cheaply for outlet stores being put in department stores and turning people away from the brand altogether.  The market is saturated with cut-rate romances that will only get read once and tossed aside until someone manages to sift out one of the titles that many people will read repeatedly, and despite romance sales being 55% of the US book sales market, how many of them will be read again?  A lot of them will be like buying a ticket to the Jem movie, and realizing that it sucks (because you didn’t believe the reviews, or you didn’t read any reviews).  Your money’s gone, and you won’t be back for a sequel.  The sale means nothing more than someone tried it.  It doesn’t mean that someone will be back for more.  For one-shot titles and romance-mill books, they’ve got the money, and that’s all that matters.  Of those 55%, how many times would readers be likely to say that any given book is worth re-reading?  Those books still water down what’s out there.

Epic fantasy books have had their own similar struggle.  For every Lord of the Rings out there, there are many more hastily-written epic fantasies.  You know the ones.  The covers become a blur, but often something like a busty brunette in a red leather bikini holding a sword with a dragon in the background.  The market for those books is necessarily smaller since it takes more of an effort to learn about an entirely fabricated world than it is to immediately understand the real-life world usually depicted in the typical fast romance.

And there is a touch of sexism, though not in the way I think most people believe.  Yes, readers are more likely to be weary of a superhero book with a woman’s name on it, and publishers seem to favor male names, but that’s not enough to account for very much.  After all, the biggest romances are still written by women, and one of the biggest monsters was created by a woman, and six of the oldest books still in wide circulation were written by a woman (granted, Jane Austen did have to have her brother use his name at first, but that doesn’t affect today).

Regarding romance and dating, men, even in 2015-going-on-2016, are still expected to pick up the checks on dates, to hold doors, and generally to be in charge until a relationship has reached the point of Category: Start Thinking About a Joint Lease.  Even a high number of feminists are turned off if a check, especially on an early date, is split, and a lot of women still want to be romanced, but don’t return it very often, if at all.  To men, romance is something they’re expected to do (being a super hero is a choice), whereas to women, it’s something feel-good that happens to us.  Men put out money on a risk.  We benefit.  The very genre itself is geared away from being feel-good for men because of the role they’ve been expected to take in relationships, and are still expected to take.

And let’s get real for a moment.  If real-life men did a lot of the actions in so many romances, they’d be hauled off to jail.  What is there to attract male readers when most of the men in romances keep chasing even when the woman has said no?  All he has to do is try harder to woo her, right?  If women were expected to enjoy a genre where women kept pushing even when the men weren’t interested, and we were supposed to like them, how many women would be excited to go buy more of that genre?  Or to even give one “good” one a chance?  We’ve all heard how Christian Grey supposedly became good in Fifty Shades Freed, yet he threatens to beat up his pregnant wife when she’s still in the hospital after being beaten by someone else.  Edward Cullen’s a lesser-creep in comparison, but still a creep.  Why should men in general want to read these books that show their sex and gender to be jerks?  It’s insulting.  Women can rally behind female superheroes.  Men can’t really rally behind rapists.  That one little thing right there affects the gender-cross-over appeal.

And when did romances really become a big “thing” overall?  There’s been romances for thousands of years.  If you believe the bible’s a couple thousand years old, then Songs of Solomon (aka Song of Songs) is a steamy romance crossed with porn (and some bestial references, for good measure) that’s 2,000 years old.  And it’s far from the first.  But when did the genre hit its stride?  I haven’t seen any literary studies on this, but I’m one of those people who’s paid a ridiculous amount of attention to the history of housewives.  When appliances began making the housework easier to do, and women were still expected to stay home, they had a lot of spare time.  In the 30’s and 40’s, housewives went to work in the factories.  At the end of the 40’s and into 50’s, with the men home and, vacuum cleaners and washing machines making things so much easier, what were housewives going to do all day?  Cleaning didn’t take as much time.  Kids are in school.  Husbands are at work.  Being lovey-dovey wasn’t manly.  It wasn’t unusual for housewives to feel lonely and neglected.

Enter the Harlequin romance!  Harlequin opened its doors in 1949, and supplied the romance fodder that lonely, frustrated housewives craved, and with so much time on their hands, this required turning out novels at a high pace.  The quality didn’t matter.  All that did was the story!  How were they going to know the difference with nothing better to compare it to?  It’s not like Jane Austen’s snarky romances were available at the corner drugstore.  And so what they had were stories of the big, strong, often rich men to sweep them off their feet and away from the drudgery of their daily lives.

And so the genre picked up, and housewives were up to their ears in quickly-written paperbacks.  By the time other writers started trying to revitalize the genre, the pool’s already been diluted.  How can we blame reviewers and critics when, even today, most romances are the same?  I understand that it’s personal for modern writers trying to put out something with more substance in the genre, but readers in general are still more likely to encounter the books written by contracted individuals tossing books to publishers to run off under one pen name.

Romances weren’t written to appeal to men, and today, they still aren’t written to appeal to men.  But even the most male-centered of superhero stories either offers something for women, or, at the least, doesn’t give us a terrible woman character and tell us to like her.

And there you have many reasons why superheroes have a huge impact on pop culture while romance is shuttled off to the side, even though romance accounts for more than half of all book sales in the US.  Books on their very own simply can’t make a massive pop-culture dent, and inherent issues and difference between the two genres limit romance’s potential fare more than superheroes.

Chapter 14: Sunday, May 29th, 2011, PART 2

Tonight I shall be going to an orchestra with my husband and our daughter.
The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses  A 90-piece orchestra, and is the visuals are anywhere near as stunning as rePLAY: The Art of Video Games that we saw earlier this year, then we’re in for a treat.  So I’ve got something to look forward to after finishing this recap!

By the way, there’s scientific evidence that the louder the male, the more he’s compensating for a small penis.  I’m looking at you, Grey.

(Directory of recap links)

Last time we had yet another pleasant flashback-via-dream to Grey’s childhood, and it was a happy one.

And now he’s waking up to the smell of something “sweet,” and it’s Ana.  I think it’s kinda heavy-handed that we’re supposed to have comforting feels the way a lot of us get over the scent of an apple pie on a cold, rainy autumn day.

Doesn’t work.  I can’t imagine her smelling of anything other than semen at this point.

He’s unsettles, the poor bastard.  He’s unsettled because he slept in a new room of his two-story penthouse.  After getting up, he retrieved Ana’s panties from the playroom, and has a “wicked idea.”  Since James has no idea how first-person narration works, Grey’s thoughts are hidden from us.

Grey wastes a page doing stuff, and then decides it’s time for Ana to get up.  Oh.  I forgot about that dinner party.  He wakes her up by telling her to wake up, and leaves the room, smug with himself that her undies won’t be with the rest of her clothes.

He spends a couple pages doing nothing worth taking up two pages, just waiting for her, until she comes out of the room, and oh lord, I guess these idiots think not wearing panties is just so scandalous.

Ladies, gents, other people: Panties are a very recent invention.  Truly.  Unless you’re planning to spread your legs in public while wearing something short, no one will ever know if you’re wearing undies.  In the summer, I sometimes skip them when wearing skirts and dresses because any breeze I can get helps cool me off, and, to be blunt, circulation lessens the chance of yeast infections.  Nothing sexy about it, nothing scandalous.

Furthermore, I go to more dressy events in a season than most people do in a decade (my husband owns a tux, I own more than a dozen formal gowns, even out daughter’s got a collection of ultra-formals for nights at the opera), and most of the time I don’t wear undies since I really don’t  care to wrangle with them when I need to pee.  It’s easier to hold up my long skirts and petticoats and not to have to worry about getting undies down or back up.  Thigh-high stockings and garters were literally made for this reason.

But Ana and Grey think they’re being naughty.  She thinks she’s being sexy by not mentioning that she’s got no undies on, and he’s practically hyperventilating with what he calls anticipation.  They’re acting like teenagers who managed to find themselves home alone.

They dance to Sinatra, and it can’t possibly be more clear that the “love” he feels for her is arousal.  There is literally nothing else they have in common, and sex in’t enough to build a relationship on.  He’s in lust, and that’s all he’ll be.

Grey thinks she’s gutsy because they’re getting ready to leave, and she hasn’t asked for her undies back.

Good GOD, I SWEAR this is nothing scandalous.  I can’t even recall if I bothered with undies on my wedding day, but these two act like they’re about to secretly have sexual contact while people are watching who might not know what’s going on.  Not this book, folks.  That happens in the next one.  Nope, I’m not making that up.  Ana will give him a hand-job in front of his grandparents while at a fundraiser ball, and we’re supposed to see it as sexy instead of as incredibly disrespectful.

They leave, and Grey is literally not able to think about anything else.  A typical hormone-crazy teen boy is more capable of thinking about other things than this supposedly in-control “man.”

I catch a glimpse of Union Lake; the moon disappears behind a cloud, and the water darkens, like my mood.

LOL.  Purple prose.  “The water darkens, like my mood.”  HAHA!!  Excuse me while I go have a good laugh!

Why am I taking her to see my parents? If they meet her, they’ll have certain expectations. And so will Ana. And I’m not sure if the relationship I want with Ana will live up to those expectations.

We already know Ana’s an idiot.  They aren’t even dating, and she knows he doesn’t want to date.  If she has expectations that their fucky-buddies relationship will suddenly become serious, then she’s dumber than we though.

And his parents are stupid enough to think that, even though there’s a scene in Fifty Shades Freed that’s mentioned where his dad wants him to sign a prenup, while Grey says it’s the twuest of twue wuv, so no prenup.  It just doesn’t mesh that they’d be hung-ho with expectations while later being concerned.

They’re still in the car, and Ana wants to know who taught him to foxtrot.

Ah, the Tango Maureen.

Mark: Where’d you learn to tango?

Joann: With the French Ambassador’s daughter in her dorm
room at Miss Porter’s. And you?

Mark: With Nanette Himmelfarb. The Rabbi’s daughter at the
Scarsdale Jewish Community Center.

RENT is amazing.

Blah blah, Grey’s wondering what Ana’s thinking, but not enough to ask.  He knows!  They’ll talk about sex!  He likes the cable ties since they’re brutal, and he likes that.  He says brutal, I say nerve damage.  Tomato, to-mah-toe.

Ana glances toward the front seat, where Taylor can hear them, and Grey thinks, rather than says (see? communication has no place in anything):

Sweetheart, don’t worry about Taylor. He knows exactly what’s going on, and he’s done this for four years.

This just proves that the glances Taylor later gives Ana that she says are sympathetic really are in sympathy.  He knows that Grey plans to use her and dump her.  This also means that Taylor definitely knows about the former sub who Grey seriously hurt, and another former sub who he so mentally destroyed that she ended up institutionalized.

Finally they arrive, and meeting the parents is dull.  Suddenly Mia gets all TWEE! and starts squealing with excitement because she’s meeting Grey’s girlfriend.

Mia’s supposed to be petite, but, just for good measure, Ana’s smaller, which really plays up the adult man/child-girlfriend angle that James has gone for.  Int his chapter, he keeps calling her “girl.”  I didn’t think that was worth mentioning before now, but it does tie in.

The tweeness is painful.  It gets worse when she squeals over Grey and Ana saying “please” at the same time.

Just to set the record straight, Grey ORDERS Ana to sit.  Like a frightened puppy, she does as told.

I need to set an example for my overly demonstrative family.

We’re supposed to like this guy?

Daddy-Carrick makes small-talk, and asks Ana if she’ll be taking a break now that she’s graduated.  She tells him she’s thinking about going to visit her mom in Georgia (keep in mind she’s only considering it at this point), and Grey snaps her head off for not seeking his permission.  Her voice wavers, indicating fear, but Grey doesn’t care.  His vagina is leaving, and he won’t get sex for a few days.

His father does pick up on this, and tries to change the subject by toasting to good health.

Grey’s not having it, and turns on Ana wanting to know why the hell she didn’t get his permission and how long she’ll be gone.  She tells him how long will depend on how well her job interviews go.  Like the supportive boyfriend he isn’t, he gets pissed that she didn’t get his permission to go on some interviews.

Ana deserves a break,” Kavanagh interrupts, staring at me with ill-concealed antagonism. I want to tell her to mind her own fucking business, but for Ana’s sake I hold my tongue.

No, Grey, you mind YOUR fucking business.  Your whole plan is to fuck and dump her.  If anyone has a place in Ana’s business, it’s the woman who’s currently financially supporting Ana.

Carrick kindly asks about the interviews, and they’re for two publishing companies.

When was she going to tell me this? I’m here with her for two minutes and I’m finding out details of her life that I should know!

Grey, you have no fucking right to know all the details of her life!  My GOD, if my HUSBAND of almost five years insisted that he has the right to know every detail about my life, I’d divorce him!  There comes a point when it goes from a courtesy heads-up and becomes an issue of control.  He has no idea I’ll be hanging out with a friend on Tuesday and going to downtown Portland while he’s at work.  I might mention it in passing before then, but if not, oh well.  When he gets home that night, he’ll find out if it comes up. We have a right to our own lives, and, as I said, we are MARRIED.

Ana and Grey aren’t even dating.  They’re fuck-buddies, nothing more.  He has no right to know what she’s doing.  When she’ll be interviewing, he should be working anyway.  So what’s it to him?

Dinner’s done, and everyone heads to the dining room.

I let the others exit the room but grab Ana’s elbow before she can follow.

“When were you going to tell me you were leaving?” My temper is rapidly unraveling.

Go to hell, you controlling, abusive piece of shit.  What the hell is wrong with the people who think this guy is just so sweet and caring?

Ana reminds him they have no arrangement, and she escapes into the dining room.  He remains pissed, and warns her they’re not done “discussing” this.

Over the course of conversation, it comes out that Kate has an internship at the Seattle Times, which Grey snarks was probably set up by her father.

He has no room to snark when the only reason (and this is actual canon) that Ana will be a senior editor of a publishing company in another month (it takes many, many, many years to reach that position) is because Grey will be buying the publishing company and requiring her promotion.

So let’s say Kate’s dad got her an internship.  That’s nothing compared to Grey getting a half-wit the top position of an entire company.

Ana begs him to not be mad, and he admits he’s furious, and tells us how she deserves to be hurt.

I’ve agreed not to go too hard on her…maybe I should use a flogger. Or maybe I should administer a straightforward spanking, harder than the last one. Here, tonight.

Yes. That has possibilities.

Need I even address the dickery of his glee when considering hurting her though he agreed not to do too much?  I think that’s apparent.  But can you believe he’s thinking that doing it at his parents’ home, while they’re guests, is even remotely appropriate?  Don’t be surprised.  He has no consideration for anyone else.

Food is served, Ana licks her lips, and Grey is turned on.  Mother-Grace takes a phone call, and return to deliver a pro-vaccination spiel blaming kids who aren’t vaccinated for a case of the measles, even though most cases of measles are in kids who’ve had the shots.  (Do NOT turn the comments into a debating spot for vaccines–I am severely immunocompromised, and lost organs because of my body attacking itself so bad, can not get vaccines, and still support parental choice because it’s really terrifying to think that there are people who truly believe our corrupt government should be allowed to dictate what synthetic chemicals we are forced to inject into our children and our bodies.)

Even Grey thinks, “Give it a rest, Mom.”  And his brother is also eager to shut down their mother’s soapboxing.  He asks about the Mariners.  Carrick gets excited, and calls them the M’s.  Um, only one team in pro baseball goes by their first letter.

The A’s and the Mariners are both in the American League West with the Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, and Los Angeles Angels (that sounds so strange and redundant–California Angels and Anaheim Angels both sound better, but they’ve been Los Angeles sin 2005), and if another team were to try the letter, they’d be teased for trying to be like the A’s. /major baseball geekery

Grace’s “helper” clears stuff from the table, and Grey thinks about how her name isn’t worth remembering (it’s Gretchen).

The topic of Paris comes up.

“It’s a beautiful city, in spite of the Parisians. Christian, you should take Ana to Paris!” Mia exclaims.

I want to smack James for that underhanded, xenophobic comment.

“Barbados is beautiful place, in spite of the stinky people who already live here. We should kill them!” Christopher Columbus exclaims.

If you think a place is beautiful except for the native people who live there, go to hell.  They’re the ones who make that place.

Grey grips Ana’s thigh under the table, and talks about his itty bitty penis twitching.  His hand starts to travel up, and Ana, understandably, jerks away.  As you probably already guessed, this pisses Grey off.

Raise your hand if you want someone to touch your vagina in front of his (or your) family.

I bet all of you thought something along the lines of, “Gross! I’d kick my partner’s ass for even trying!”

Too bad Grey lacks discretion.  He really wants to “stroke” her with his parents watching.  There are few things less sexy that the thought of my parents or in-laws watching this.  Just typing that ensured I’ll have no libido for the rest of the month.

I’m skipping a few pages of absolutely pointless banter.  Most of it’s not important enough to really be described, and I don’t feel like translating bad French.  A few years ago, James admitted to me on Twitter (before she banned me) that she doesn’t know any French.  She probably used Google Translate or something anyway.

Grey starts thinking about how he needs to set more rules and put his foot down about things like Ana doing anything without his consent.  He wants to put his fingers into her, and so she’d better let him.  When he tries, she squeezes her thighs together to stop him.

That’s it.

I have to excuse us from the dinner table. “Shall I give you a tour of the grounds?”

You know what he’s planning.

Outside, my mood plunges south as my anger surfaces.

This won’t go well.

The rest of this chapter will be up sometime this week, just as soon as I stop wanting to slam a door on my head.

A Jem update

More than five months have passed since my initial post about the Jem and the Holograms movie and now.  The movie has since been released, and is bombing worse than even I thought it would.

(I promise the nest installment of Alys-is-a-masochist (better known as the Grey recaps) is coming up soon.  I’ve been busy with house-hunting since we are trying to buy, as well as a gown commission.  Those posts take me a good four or more hours each.  Posts like this are much faster.)

Between then and now, my anger has managed to grow.  The more I’ve had time to reflect, the more I’ve realized the effect that Jem had on little girls back in the 80’s.  She was more than a mere role model.  In the 80’s, little girls were still sent the message that we were to be damsels in distress, and college was merely a way to pass time after high school until we married, have a couple kids, and stayed home, and what we wanted didn’t matter since that was the way of it.  (I’m not slamming at-home moms–I am one myself, and I love it.)  Jem was the first to tell us little girls that we didn’t have to stay at home.  That was HUGE in an era when women were losing legal ground in the workforce and pay disparity was increasing along.  Sexual discrimination against women wasn’t even outlawed until 1986!  Men were the bosses of us, whether they were bosses at work (presuming we could even get hired) or our own husbands that we were expected to have when we grew up.  We all had one correct path.

Jem showed us something different.  It doesn’t matter that the show was created as a means to create interest in a line of toys.  What matters is we saw a woman who wasn’t bossed around by men, and who both worked while also taking care of children.  Shana even went on her own path for a while, and became a bona fide fashion designer, and it wasn’t all sequins and glamour.  She struggled, but made it her own.

I’m so furious that all that was stripped out, and, rather than putting Eric Raymond in his place, the young women, now made into young teens, are made submissive to Eric-turned-woman, and are dependent on Eric(a).  I found out something else very disturbing.  Jerrica/Jem’s love-interest, Rio, has been left as a young adult, but also made into Eric(a)’s son, and, despite being an adult, is still lusting after Jem even though she’s a minor (he also knows her identity, as does everyone else).

The movie added in the twist of Rio coming to own Starlight Records, making Jerrica, rather than an owner, an employee of a man, which is something the original series wouldn’t have stood for.  For Jerrica to be owner at all, she now must marry Rio and hope there’s no pre-nup.  Take the studio from the women, give it to the man, and make the woman who should own it into a mere employee.  Let’s add salt to the wound: Rio’s the one who, as owner, decides they’ll be called the Holograms.  Can’t let the wimminz decide….  Rio ends up becoming the hero by saving the band by ousting his mother, who wanted to Jerrica to become a solo act.  So much for Jem and her band being in charge and pretty much always saving the say. It’s insulting to the nth degree.

I guess Jon Chu heard the critics to some extent.  Chu did some pick-up shots just a few weeks ago with the Misfits!  Don’t get too excited.  Their entire role is after the end credits.  They walk into a club, even though they don’t interact with anyone who matters.  It was more or less a, “You want them?  We’ll give them the most token of token parts that isn’t even integrated into the movie.”  How offensive.

Rio’s ownership of the company that employs his underage girlfriend also creates an issue of authority dynamics.  Did I mention underage girlfriend?  In most states, their relationship is illegal, but don’t count on Chu to identify the problems with that, nor with putting Jerrica and her friends in a position of career submission to a young mane who could destroy them if Jerrica breaks up with him before he wants her to.

For someone who claims to be a fan of Jem, Chu really doesn’t get it.  He’s said that this was a “superhero origin story,” but he completely ignored that Jem and Kimber’s origin story was an important part of the original series.  We saw their childhoods.  We saw Shana and Aja come in as foster children.  We saw their parents raise them, and understood why it was so important to them to make sure the foster girls in their care were loved and provided for.  If Chu was a true fan, he would have honored the original series instead of deciding to completely destroy absolutely every single thing about it.  And now he wants to make a sequel. He wants to make a Jem/G.I.Joe/Transformers cross-over.

For many real fans, loving Jem is about more than just being a fan.  It’s personal.  She opened us up to the idea that we would do so much more than society was telling us we were allowed to do.  Chu didn’t have limits placed on him for his sex.  Lucky him.  Too bad he showed us how little he gets it by turning Jem into a dependent, angsty teen whose whose road to stardom was started because she was disrespected by her sister.

At the end of the day, the fact that this supposedly-girl-power movie was put together entirely by men, from script to directing, is disheartening.  This isn’t so unlike a film aimed at empowering black people that’s produced by an all-white cast after telling black people their input isn’t desired, or a film aimed at empowering gay people produced by all straight people who are telling the gay people to leave the building.  A film about empowering girls and women should involve girls and women in the production process, let Chu & co. explicitly locked all women, including the creator of Jem, out of the process.  We get girl power through the eyes of the privileged group that doesn’t know what it’s like to watch as our rights are used in the political arena as bargaining chips.  Re-read the paragraph on Rio coming to own the company, and think about how that is seen as girl power.  It’s clearly through eyes who have no idea how offensive this movie is, especially when compared to the source material.

While Chu works on new ways to destroy nostalgia, role models, and messages that today’s girls still need, I’m going to be eagerly waiting for Jem and the Hologram: Only the Beginning, a fan film currently in production.

Photo from the fan-film Facebook page

Chapter 14: Sunday, May 29th, 2011, PART 1

The last chapter was so short that I feel the need to do another tonight.  Plus a date-night was canceled because my daughter got sick, which means I’m sitting on the couch with time to kill.  Can I kill Christian Grey instead, or will there be a race to that privilege?

This is an 86-page chapter.  So it will be broken into parts.

(Directory of recap links)

I was about to call James out on dragging the Rolling Stones into this, but she instead has Grey acknowledge something.  He’s taking a morning run that just happens to go by her place when his morning runs never have before.  He wants to see where she lives.  He admits…

It’s between control freak and stalker.

HE ADMITS IT!  HELL FROZE OVER!!  He knows what he is!!!

Wait…

I chuckle to myself.  I’m just running.  It’s a free country.

I…

Even Pornstashe looks surprised.  As I said in a reply to a comment, this book is an inside look at the mind of a rapist (who we are supposed to LIKE), and it’s conditioning fans to think like rapists and to explain away bad and scary behavior.

Grey runs some more and gets in the way of people setting up a farmers’ market, and ends the section on this vague thought.

Today’s the day.

The day for what?  When a book is in first person, it doesn’t work well to keep the narrator’s thoughts a secret.

Actually, it might not be a secret.  This book is, all in all, forgettable enough that I might have forgotten.

In the next scene, he pulls a hair tie from his chest of drawers.  In this area of the US, we call it a dresser, and a hair tie is more commonly called a rubber band.  Why on earth did he put a rubber band in his shirt pocket?

Since IMing doesn’t exist in their world, he sends her an email.  I think part of why this is so strange is that I have over 336,284 unread emails.

That’s number’s heading up since I’m having it check for new messages.

Also because IMing is direct and faster.  Why send a snail mail when you have a readable walkie-talkie?

He tells her the garage and elevator pass codes, and she replies right away thanking him for the alcohol and balloon.  Because he’s a walking bag of testosterone, he immediately imagines her tied up.

The next page is so forgettable that I feel like a goldfish for forgetting it so fast.  Upon second reading, I now have to stop eating my snack.  He’s eating a croissant, and so am I.  Only now I’m not because I lost my appetite for it.  None of this is relevant to anything.

Ana arrives, and he’s surprised she hasn’t run off.  When you expect someone to run off, that’s a sign you’re doing it wrong.  But she’s there.  It’s not like she has a choice.  He’ll just stalk her.

I can’t believe my luck.

I knew you were a freak, Ana.

No.  She isn’t a freak.  She knows she has no choice.  You really will stalk her.  She’s stuck.

Oh, yeah.  The house-call by the terrible doctor.  Ana asks about Dr. Greene, and Grey tells her Dr. Greene’s supposed to be the best OB/GYN (which James wrote as ob-gyn) in Seattle.  I know he’s wrong.  Any half-way decent doctor would want the patient’s consent, and would want any exams to be done in an environment known to be clean and sanitary and with the proper equipment.  If you’ve ever had a pap smear, as Ana will have, you’ll know how a lack of stir-ups will make it pretty hard.

Grey tells her he’s supposed to invite her to dinner, but that he thinks it would be “odd” for them him to introduce them, and I agree.  Ana asks if he’s ashamed of her.  He’s irritated, and so am I.  I don’t like agreeing with him.  They’ve been dating (if we consider the first date of meaningless fucking to be the start of dating) for about a week now.  I only met my husband’s mom two days after we started dating since we were already good friends for a few years, and I have exes I dated several months whose families I never met.  Typically, meeting family means a step forward in the relationship, and all Grey and Ana have is that they’re grinding genitalia.

The doctor arrives, and Taylor shows her to Ana’s room.  What kind of doctor wouldn’t be extremely uncomfortable making a Sunday house call to the home of people she’s never met, especially without ever talking to the patient?  Before Ana goes, Grey kisses her.

“I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t wait to get you naked.” I can’t believe how much I missed you.

Literally all they have is sex, and we’re supposed to see this as a romance.

Then they head up to meet the doctor.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice.” I flash her my most benign smile.

“Thank you for making it worth my while, Mr. Grey. Miss Steele,” she says politely to Ana, and I know she’s sizing up our relationship. I’m sure that she thinks I should be twiddling a mustache like a silent-movie villain. She turns and gives me a pointed “leave now” kind of look.

Okay.

Twiddling a mustache?  Yes.  I’m unsettled that she thanks them for “making it worth [her] while.”  Medical ethics can be abandoned for a price.

After the exam and Ana had birth control injected into her, Dr. Greene meets with Grey again.

“Yes, Mr. Grey. Look after her; she’s a beautiful, bright young woman.”

What has Ana told her?

“I fully intend to,” I say, with a quick what-the-fuck glance at Ana.

She bats her lashes, clueless. Good. It’s nothing she’s said, then.

“I’ll send you my bill,” says Dr. Greene. “Good day, and good luck to you, Ana.”

That’s not alarming or anything, right?  Somehow she realized something’s amiss, and basically gave Grey a heads up, though her hands aren’t clean either.  Grey turning his attention to Ana in the way he did shows us that he knows, on some level, that there is something concerning Ana could say.

How often has a doctor told you good luck regarding a relationship?

After the doctor leaves, Ana jokes that she can’t have sex for four weeks, and Grey retaliates by narrowing his eyes and scaring her.  Her grin over her own joke drops from her face.  To him, her fear is funny.  He wants to punish her my forcing her to have sex on the counter.  So…rape.  But he doesn’t, at least not yet.

“As much as I’d like to take you here and now, you need to eat and so do I. I don’t want you passing out on me later,” I whisper.

“Is that all you want me for—my body?” she asks.

“That and your smart mouth.” I kiss her once more, thinking of what’s to come…My kiss deepens and desire hardens my body. I want this woman. Before I fuck her on the floor, I release her, and we’re both breathless.

That’s sad.  It really, really is.  All he wants her for is to basically be a cum-receptacle, whether he ejaculates into her vagina or her mouth, and he says so right there.

For lunch, Grey grabs a salad from the fridge that Mrs. Jones left there, and he congratulates himself on being “so domestic.”

Few things are less domestic than grabbing food from the fridge that is already made.  Pulling off a lid (even that much wasn’t mentioned) doesn’t mean domestic.  Grey, get back to me when you’ve gotten out the produce, cleaned and chopped it, cooked the chicken, tossed it with the cheese and dressing in the bowl, and then cleaned up.

Know whats’s even more domestic?  Taking care of a sick child.  My daughter’s sleeping beside me right now since she really wants to be close to mommy, and I’m prepared for her to throw up again.

So they get ready to eat, and he asks what she got.  She says the mini-pill.  Is that what she got in the original?

*opens original*

Okay, she did.  She’ll get Depo later.  Since the mini-pill MUST be taken at the SAME time every day without a grace period, this is the worst method to give to someone who is regularly a goldfish.  Even Grey thinks to himself, “You should have had the shot.”  But this doesn’t mean he’ll be satisfied using condoms for long.

As soon as she’s finished eating, he grabs her for sex.  Right away, she’s nervous.

“Are you going to hit me?”

“Yes, but it won’t be to hurt you. I don’t want to punish you right now. If you’d caught me yesterday evening, well, that would have been a different story.”

Her face turns to shock.

Oh, baby. “Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise, Anastasia. One of the reasons people like me to do this is because we either like to give or receive pain. It’s very simple. You don’t, so I spent a great deal of time yesterday thinking about that.”

He knows she doesn’t like being hit, but is going to do it anyway.

She asks if he concluded anything, and nope, he says he hasn’t, though his continued plan to hit her seems like a conclusion to me.

I lead her upstairs and into my playroom. My safe place. Where I can do what I wish with her. I close my eyes, briefly savoring the exhilaration.

Have I ever been this excited?

HIS safe place.  The one needing a safe place is the one being ignored.

He starts pulling her clothes off, and he says something that, in any other book, would be sweet.

“I want you to be comfortable with your body, Anastasia. You have a beautiful body, and I like to look at it. It is a joy to behold. In fact, I could gaze at you all day, and I want you unembarrassed and unashamed of your nakedness. Do you understand?”

If he wasn’t so mean to her, and always chastising her for being too skinny, and was treated like a human being with respect and dignity, she might feel better about herself.

He pulls the rubber band from his jeans pocket (I wonder when he moved it) to hold her hair back.  Who does that?  Who, when getting dressed, grabs a rubber band to tie someone else’s hair back later?

I’m not going into detail with this sex scene.  In short, he puts her through a full, rather mild, BSDM scene, with a very noticeable lack of enthusiasm on her part.

Afterward, they’re laying on the bed in the playroom, and…  This next bit shocked me since it’s actually rather well-written, and it’s a bit of continuity that isn’t Grey being a walking erection.  He’s supposed to have trauma that makes him not like to be touched, and anti’s have had a field day pointing out all the many times he forgets about that, always when it’s convenient.

And suddenly I’m overwhelmed by an unfamiliar emotion that rocks through me, slicing through sinew and bone, leaving unease and fear in its wake.

She turns her head and starts to nuzzle my chest.

The darkness swells, startling and familiar, replacing my unease with a sense of dread. Every muscle in my body tenses. Ana blinks up at me with clear, unflinching eyes as I struggle to control my fear.

“Don’t,” I whisper. Please.

She leans back and peers at my chest.

Get control, Grey.

“Kneel by the door,” I order, uncurling around her.

Go. Don’t touch me.

See?  We are actually shown his fear instead of just told, and the pacing gives his need to puts some distance between them a sense of urgency.

He orders her to kneel by the door, and then grabs a cable tie to bind her wrists together.  He has scissors, but this is still extremely dangerous.  This is a cable tie:

What do you think happens when the flesh around one of those begins to swell?  You’re not going to fit scissors between the skin and tie if the tie’s tight enough to hold a couple appendages together.  This risks major damage to the person being bound, not only when cutting, but during use, these things cause nerve damage.  This is BDSM 101.

This leads into another sex scene, but before Grey, uh, takes the plunge, he tells us:

Her back is a perfect curve, each vertebra outlined from her nape to her fine, fine ass.

Remember this for later.  Remember how much he enjoys seeing her bones when he tells her later she’s too skinny.

He carries her to bed to sleep, and yay…a symbolic dream.

In it, be brushes her hair, and they’re happy, and they go to bake an apple pie.

Why the hell does he hate his mother so much?  In none of his memories or dreams does she ever mistreat him, and most of his memories are happy.

So the world was surprised with a new Twilight book today…

To the surprise of many, many people, Brown, Little released a new Stephenie Meyer book today, Life and Death.

Yes.  Yes, it really is.  It’s a new Twilight book.

Now, some of you may recall that I started Sacred Blood as my response to the romanticization of abuse in the Twilight series.  Oh, how naive we all were to the horrors awaiting us in Fifty Shades….  Anyway, I was alarmed that teen girls and young women were declaring themselves so in love with a controlling stalker that they were planning to hold out for someone like Edward.

Eventually the Twilight whirlwind died down, and was replaced by fanfics that exemplified the abusive aspects, and it felt like I was the only one still against what had become mild abuse compared to what came next.

Imagine my surprise to find out today that Life and Death is now a thing.

Like the anti-Twilighter I am (I’m a mother who hopes my boy-crazy daughter will find a young man who’ll treat her well instead of disabling her vehicle, sneaking into her room without any consent, and more), I dove right into finding out all I could, and it’s not favorable.

There are only a few notable differences in this “reimagining.”  The most notable is that the sexes have been swapped.  Gender is different than sex, and they don’t always line up–let’s please call this what it is, which is SEX-swapping where everyone happens to be cisgendered too.  Their new names are all alliterations, which make it easy.  Edward is Edythe.  Bella is now Beaufort.  …Beaufort?  I guess it’s better than Renesme…

Meyer claims she did this in an attempt to dispel the “myth” that Bella is a weak character.  We we are all well-aware, fan or non-fan, Bella was passive and needed to be rescued.  A lot.  If she was breathing, or even just faking, she needed to be saved from something.  Unfortunately, Meyer failed miserably at showing us, through Beaufort, how strong she says Bella really is.  Beaufort needs to be saved just as often as Bella.

The only ways the sex-swap works is that Bella’s klutziness isn’t Human being a lousy human, but instead about Human Boy having a growth spurt, and Human’s lack of confidence isn’t a fish for compliments, but Human Boy being self-conscious about said-growing spree.  I’m presuming that Meyer observed this with her own three sons, who are now either all teens or nearing their teens.

Everywhere else, it fails.  It magnifies how much Vampire had to save Human.  Where we could root for Female Vampire to save Human Boy, we can much easier see how often Edward was saving Bella.

The biggest kicker comes in the ending.  This really shows how twisted Meyer is.  Just wait….

In Twilight, Bella was kidnapped by James for Reasons.  James was going to kill Bella more or less just because he’s a vampire, and she smells particularly tasty.  No, that’s really the reason.  She’s an incredibly delectable chocolate cake.  Yummy.  Edward finds them just in time to save Bella, though not before she got some venom in her.  Edward sucked it out to stop her from becoming a vampire even though he knows she wants to become one.

In Life and Death, rather than having Human-Boy kidnapped by Big Bad Vampire so BBV can eat Human-Boy, and Vampire-Girl saving him, we have BBV kidnapping Vampire-Girl to lure Human-Boy into sacrificing himself because BBV wants to eat Human-Boy.  Yes, in an attempt at showing how strong Bella is, Meyer actually re-wrote this scene so that the girl still has to be saved by the boy.  Why not have Vampire still save Human if Human-Bella is really strong?

Oh!  Because Bella’s weak, and so the story has to change so her male-proxy actually does something.  Unfortunately, this change not only really drives how how little Bella does, it once again results in a girl who can’t save herself or be the least bit proactive.

Meyer?  Hey, Meyer!  THIS DOESN’T WORK.

Another problematic change is what happens after the human is bitten.  Edward sucked out the venom even though he knew Bella wanted to become a vampire.  No choice for her!  Now, the fact that Bella’s a minor, and so probably shouldn’t get to make such a major, MAJOR life-altering/ending choice doesn’t matter at all right now.  Let’s not debate that since it really doesn’t matter at the moment.

Beaufort was bitten.  Of course he was.  Unlike Bella, Beaufort is given a choice.  For some reason, sucking the venom out will kill him.  So they leave it up to him.  Vampire or death.  (Too bad original-book Rose wasn’t given this decision, considering how miserable she was throughout the entire series since she was clear about preferring to die a human than “live” as a vampire.)  Of course Beau makes the decision Bella would have, had anyone bothered to care about what she openly wanted.  So, rather than not becoming a vampire, he makes the choice to become a vampire, and he and Edythe live happily ever after (though some sources cite this book as the first of four.)

The author of the above-cited article says, “Say what you want about Bella, but she always had a CHOICE — and we’re happy to see that Beau did, too.”  No, no, no, Crystal Bell, Edward sucked out the venom when he knew Bella really wanted to change.  That’s the opposite of choice.

Many subtler issues exist as well.  A couple examples:

In the original,  Charlie reminded Bella who Billy Black is my telling her Billy used to go fishing with them, while in the new one, Charlie reminds Beaufort that Bonnie and her husband used to go fishing with them.

In the original, Billy Black fixed up the truck Charlie bought for Bella.  In the new one, Bonnie had someone else fix up the truck.

Clearly, women can’t enjoy fishing or be good at mechanics, and must instead be going along for the ride and paying men to do the hard work.  This wouldn’t be an issue (not all women enjoy fishing or working on cars) if we didn’t have the original character to compare things to.  We can plainly and easily see what things male characters do that female characters aren’t allowed to do for no reason other than their sex.

All this book does is drive home how poor of a character Bella is, how weak she is, how worthless her choices are to those around her.

And yet it’s a best-seller because apparently readers really do want more stalking and controlling in their relationships, and it shows, once again, how hesitant publishers are to give readers anything new.  At this point, I don’t know if readers are eating this stuff up due to a lack of options (indie books are still largely overlooked by the mainstream thanks to smear campaigns against the independent world), or if publishers believe this is what readers genuinely want.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  What’s pretty hard to deny though is that it’s a cycle that’s not breaking, and this isn’t good news for either authors or for readers who are sick and tired of literally the exact same books and stories.

I suppose I shall dust off Sacred Amour, and get back to work.  Even if only a few people will ever read it, at least it’ll be an option, and at least I’ll feel like I’m doing something to cause some positive change.

Chapter 13: Saturday, May 28th, 2011

I don’t want to think about how many deaths there’ve been around me in the last month.  The youngest was just five.  Toss loads of family drama on that…

Let’s get back on the Shit Show Express!

(Directory of recap links)

Not!Alice hugs the POS she calls a brother, and squeals like a twee little twit.  I admit I liked Alice in Twilight since I saw her tweeness as a semi-sarcastic response to her family acting like a bunch of idiots scared to pick out their clothes unless she told then what is a good idea and what someone might insult.  I also liked Rosalie because se was dumped on every chance Meyer could get since she, like Erica Leonard wanna-be-with-vampire-James, hates blonde women.

They head out of the airport…  Just a side note here.  A couple weeks ago I made a drive in the middle of the night from Vancouver up to the airport in Seattle a few hours north to take a friend there so she could get on the one affordable flight to Florida to see her mom before she passed.  Yeah….  Anyway, Sea-Tac looks like a carbon copy of Portland International Airport, which is an amazing airport.  I’m glad James skipped describing it since she’s get it all wrong.  I can research the color of a roof for the grocery store in a small town, but James is allergic to research.

Mia’s shallow and hung up on the shopping she did in Paris, even though she went to Paris to learn to cook.  I get the uncomfortable feeling we are supposed to see her as this lovely lady.

Audrey Hepburn as Sabrina.  It’s on Netflix.  Watch it, if you haven’t already.

Do we want a flashback to when Grey first held Mia and his first word was to say her name and Grace cried happy tears?  No.

They get to their parents’ home, and Mia pouts because her parents didn’t ditch their jobs to meet her a week early.  What a self-centered snot.

The only person around is my parents’ housekeeper—she’s an exchange student, and I can’t remember her name. “Welcome home,” she says to Mia in her stilted English, though she’s looking at me with big cow eyes.

Oh, God. It’s just a pretty face, sweetheart.

That’s right, insult the housekeeper who sounds scared of you.  Also the exchange students are students, not hired help.  Also, Grey, get over yourself.  Your face ain’t that pretty.  It’ll be less pretty when everyone who hates your abusive ass gets a few punches in.

He ignored the poor girl, and Mia gives him a present.  Just to remind us who Grey is, it’s a snow globe with a grand piano inside.  Mia asks him about Ana, Grace walks in, Grey bitches about being asked to take Mia’s suitcase upstairs, and I need some coffee to stay awake.  This is boring.

Grey bails and goes to see his personal trainer.  Apparently Bastille is a tough trainer since they do contact-sparring.  I’ve taken taekwondo and shotokan, and both forms were with contact.  I’ve taken kicks to my face.  How are Christian’s kickboxing classes tougher for the contact?  He’s distracted, Bastille says he’s gone soft in Portland, and asks if Grey’s staying in Seattle for the week.  That’s all this section has.  Filler.  Just filler.

He jogs back to his apartment, and remembers a housewarming present for Ana.  He didn’t buy it, of course.  He has to as his assistant what she picked, and she lets him know it’s champagne and a balloon.  Thrilling….

Wait, what?  I’m confused now.  He gets up to his place to get “the present,” and it’s a riding crop.  So which is it?  Alcohol or a whip?  I’m so confused….

Taking the crop, I stroll into my bedroom. This will be the perfect introduction to my world: by her own admission Ana has no sphere of reference with regard to corporal punishment, except the spanking I gave her that night. And that turned her on.

I guess he forgot how she said she felt demeaned and abused.  She was aroused in the way some victims of rape are, where their body primes automatically to lessen the chance of damage, but she didn’t really enjoy it.  She was hurt.

We’ll take it slow. And we’ll only do what she can handle. If this is going to work we’re going to have to go at her pace. Not mine.

Fucking liar who fucking lies.  Everything is at his pace, even this.  She didn’t ask for this.  It’s what he wants.

Elena calls to tell him she met a woman who “might fulfill [his] needs.”  I’m not surprised to see a statutory rapist seeing other women as objects to service a man.  This is more filler.  It took up an entire page and a half.

Now dinner’s over, and we’re told after the fact what they had, and I don’t care what they had since it wasn’t the deadly part of a pufferfish.  Mia demands to know about Ana.  Again.  Grey simply says he met a girl, “End of story.”  Mia won’t leave it at that, and their father, Carrick tells her to knock it off.

But we’ll see in about half a second where Mia gates it from. See, Grace backs Grey into a corner, and now he feels obligated to have Ana over for dinner the following night since Kate will be there with Elliot.  Manipulative move, Mother.  Now fuck off.  Oh, wait, I was thinking about the crap my own mother pulls.  I’d rather have either of Grey’s moms, though this really is a bitch-move by Grace.

Mia, who still knows nothing about Ana, says she sounds super awesome OMG twee-SQUEE!  While bouncing in her chair.  Naturally.

Grace tells him Elena called for him.  In 2011, if someone calls a person asking for the person’s son, who has a cell phone, the response is to tell the caller to call the son herself instead of passing a long a message.  That should have tipped Grace off to stay out of it.  She knows Elena knows her son’s phone number.  She should realize her son may not want to talk to Elena.

They’re having apple cobbler for dessert.  WHO CARES??

Grace made me laugh by telling Grey he works “too hard.”  More like he doesn’t really work at all!

Grey excuses himself, and internally swears about how Ana will be meeting his family, and he’s not sure how he feels about that.

This is it for this chapter.  It’s hot dog filler and more filler.  Sorry nothing’s funny.  There’s just nothing to work with here.  So here’s something to make you laugh, just to make it worth it to have read the 1,129 words in this post: