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FMK #3: I heard there was some real kinky stuff in these, y'all*
Okay! Now that I have gone through all the paperbacks and have a better idea of what I actually have, this should be a fun one. :D
Results from last week's FMK.
How FMK works: I am trying to clear out my unread books piles. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away, immediately and with prejudice. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.
I am going to start officially closing the poll and picking winners on Friday nights because I don't always have time on Sunday to read a whole novel. (although not actually closing it probably, people can still vote.)
Link to long version of explanation (on previous poll)
*I may have heard wrong
Results from last week's FMK.
How FMK works: I am trying to clear out my unread books piles. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away, immediately and with prejudice. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.
I am going to start officially closing the poll and picking winners on Friday nights because I don't always have time on Sunday to read a whole novel. (although not actually closing it probably, people can still vote.)
Link to long version of explanation (on previous poll)
Poll #18074 FMK #3: I heard there was some real kinky stuff in these, y'all*
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 49
Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel (1980)
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqcueline Carey (2001)
The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure by Storm Constantine (2003)
Touched by Venom by Janine Cross (2005)
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (1991)
Guilty Pleasures by Laurel K. Hamilton (1993)
House of Zeor by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (1974)
High Couch of Silistra by Janet Morris (1977)
Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman (1966)
The Healing of Crossroads by Nick O'Donohoe (1990)
Kildar by John Ringo (2006)
*I may have heard wrong
no subject
I also honestly like Clan of the Cave Bear, which I realize is a minority opinion. Later books are ridiculous but the first is an engrossing work of anthropological historical fiction with tons of cool cultural worldbuilding, some interesting characters, and soap opera. It does have a rape.
And (this is starting to become a theme): parts of Outlander are lots of fun. The first half or so is pretty enjoyable cross-genre time-travel romance with some unusual genre aspects. There is a romance which I was not so into and which has some sketchy issues (though also some unusual genre aspects - the heroine is married in her own time and the hero is a virgin) and there are rape threats and rape. Though that ALSO has unusual genre issues as it's a man who's raped. There's a really WTF healing vagina scene. The whole book is original in ways it doesn't get credited for because of the problematic/trashy/unappealing elements.
The Healing of Crossroads is book three in a trilogy about veterinarians in fantasyland. It is a bizarre mix of charming and incredibly grimdark and WTF. I would fuck book one (The Magic and the Healing first. No rape! Lots and lots of torture and animal harm, though.
Please fuck Touched by Venom. I am not going to defend that one. It is hilaribad. Also, rapetastic.
I have not read the Storm Constantine book but I hear it has flowery prose and flower-shaped penises.
no subject
I understood Clan of the Cave Bear had weird size kink stuff and also mammoth sex as well as the rapeyness, but maybe that's not until later in the series?
I am so there for flowery penises, though.
I don't personally need rape warnings and TBH, I usually just assume that any published book with sex in it is going to have rape and/or other consent issues unless it's been specifically recommended to me as not having them. Rape culture, man. I strongly object to books where the author doesn't seem to know the difference between "rape" and "building a foundation for a loving relationship", though, which, as you know bob, comes up a lot. Also books where the author thinks "she was raped", all by itself counts as "a complex and unique backstory".
(Grimspace had a rape threat that the MC decided to defuse by having consensual sex with him because he was hot anyway, which was interrupted by Designated Love Interest dragging her off in a jealous fit, at which point they had first-time sex up against a wall, after which she learned that Rape Dude had been using a pheromonal perfume that removed her ability to say no and DLI knew about it. And then they have to flee the planet to keep Rape Dude from kidnapping her as a brood mare and the attempted rape and pheromones never get mentioned again.)
(And it's sold as an SF romance but that's the only actual sex scene in the book)
(Sunbird didn't have any sex or explicitly sexual threats but it sure did manage the slavery and torture and discipline scenes)
(Maybe I should start having a special section in my reviews just for "here are the bits with noncon or dubcon" because I suspect I will almost always have *something* for that square.)
no subject
I strongly object to books where the author doesn't seem to know the difference between "rape" and "building a foundation for a loving relationship", though, which, as you know bob, comes up a lot.
In that case, kill Outlander. Not rape per se, but definitely sketchy issues along those lines.
The first Cave Bear book has no kink whatsoever. The size kink (as well as the male lead) comes up in later ones. As it were. The rape in the first book is not played for kink at all; it's explicitly an act of violence, not sex.
no subject
There is also a difference for me, I think, between "needs a warning for rape" and "is rape-y"? But I think not everyone uses them that way. Something could have rape in it as a relevant well-done plot point (or even as self-aware idporn) and need the warning without me thinking of it as rapey; whereas something could have no sexual contact at all but have a general looming atmosphere of, well, rapiness, and count as rape-y for me. (Like, it's questionable whether the scene in Grimspace involved any actual non-con, but it was very definitely rape-y. It partook of the general characteristics of rape.)