Please Avert Your Eyes

Sex. Sex. Sex.

Got your attention?
Titillated? Or maybe just a little uncomfortable?

You can sign me up for option number two.

You would think that a normal, red-blooded, American male would enjoy him some nude scenes, that he would really get into getting permission from his wife to dive into some explicit nekked bedtime hoochy-coochy.

Uh. Sure. Maybe.

I might give a hearty (if not somewhat embarrassed, especially in a public forum such as this) HELL YEAH, if I happened to stumble across those scenes on late-night premium cable and she said, "Hey. Why don't we watch this for a while?" I know my college self would. I can still see him sitting on a threadbare sofa with three or four other bearers of testosterone, proudly clutching an 85¢ quart of Natural Light, skeevishly leering at the bouncy bits of the Baywatch babes. What would he say if he knew that one day a grown woman would not only present him with sexually explicit material, but ask him to actively enjoy it? He'd probably write a letter:

Dear Penthouse Forum,
I never believed it would happen to me . . .

But this is sex in paragraph form; and for some reason, it is a different beast altogether.

But you say, "Penthouse Forum is in paragraph form."

And I say, "I know, right? What's the difference?" I am not sure. All I know is that there is one.

Maybe I should pose the question to some cognitive scientist--Or maybe Steven Pinker already has a book about it. I don't know. All I know is that I cannot read three pages full of bulgy leather pants, heaving bosoms and sweaty bodies entwined in ecstasy without becoming extremely uncomfortable.

Let me be clear, we not dealing with YA here--although Tiff tells me that Holly Black can get pretty gritty.

No. We are venturing into the liminal category of Adult Supernatural Romance. I say liminal because I think that this is definitely an in-between category. If it is well written, it contains just enough of a supernatural plot line to keep the Sci-Fi geek in me content while providing plenty of opportunities to satisfy those who are more sensually inclined. It's like the old Reese's commercials: You got your naked chocolate in my vampire peanut-butter.

So, who writes this stuff and why do I keep reading it?

I told you--my wife makes me.

Not really. I am completely sucked into the stories--taken by the lives of the inhabitants of Bon Temps, Louisiana and Caldwell New York.

Of course, I am talking about Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series and J.R. Ward's novels of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.

I have found, after reading through both series, that I am able to skim through the naughty bits. I just kind of let my eyes slide over phrases like (and these are not direct quotations but paraphrased to protect the innocent):

I felt him poking me in the back from a foot away.

or

He freed himself from his leathers.

or

She . . .

Oh, hell, I can't go on anymore. Suffice it to say that there are many moist and sweaty bodies and body parts moving all around, testing out the laws of friction in various stages of tumescence and detumesence. (Thank you Ulysses).

Not that it isn't well written. It is. I mean it must be to work so many up into such a froth. But I find that I have to use the skim method while trying to pick up important plot points that might come through in the pillow talk.

Am I alone here? I don't think that I am.

I've spoken to some guys who will not read these books at all--because of the steamy stuff. I try to tell them that it is worth it. There is great action in the Black Dagger series and Ward does such a good job describing her Vampire culture. She paints this sexy, ass-kicking world with an anthropologist's eye for societal detail.

At the same time, she averages about six-hundred erections per chapter. Okay maybe I'm being somewhat hyperbolic. But there are a bunch of them. Enough to make you feel incredibly inadequate.

And Harris's books are funny and fast paced. She has a wicked wit, a keen eye for Southern culture, and she also provides male readers with plenty of action. Her BC (boner count) is somewhat less than Ward's, but it is still pretty high; and her men, dead, alive or lupine, still have the ability to leave the average man feeling somewhat less-than.

Hmm. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe it is not the sex after all. Maybe it is the sexual prowess of the men that inhabit these tales. They are sculpted, bold, and sometimes dead. They can transform themselves into lusty beasts. They are, mostly, uninhibited (See Ward's Zsadist for a richly detailed portrait of sex and the sexually abused man. Seriously. She really tweaks the genre with this character). I don't believe that I could ever get there.

I can't measure up--literally or figuratively. I'm not sure that there is anyone in the real world who can.

Okay. Enough of this for now. I am making myself uncomfortable. Feel free to skim all of this, if you need to. Then tell me if you find anything worthwhile.

Hello.

Let me begin by telling you, my wife made me do this.

Just like she made me read the books that I will be talking about here. Maybe made is a little too harsh. Let's just say she strongly suggested that I read the books. That suggestion was, of course, backed up with the threat of constant badgering and the badgering was backed with the promise of guilt:

"I told you that this was a good book and you refuse to even give it a chance. Do you not trust me? Do you not think that I have good taste in literature?"

Pause.

Then the eyes narrow and the mouth tightens, followed by the all-knowing slow nod, signaling the fact that she has me all figured out.

"You think you are too good for this, don't you?"

"No," I say, "it's just that--"

"Oh, no. You think you're too good for this. This is beneath you, Mr. almost-have-my-doctorate-in-English. Forget about it. I don't need to hear you get all judgey and critical about it anyway."

"But I would really--"

"No. You'll just end up ruining them for me. Forget about it."

Oh, I forgot to mention that the guilt is backed by direct attacks on my character and education.

(By the way, I was not allowed to read any of the books from the Twilight series. Those are sacred. Those are the books that got her reading again. She won't take a chance on me ruining them.)

In all fairness I should admit that her criticisms are not unfounded. I can be a bit of a snob. And I have a hard time keeping my opinions to myself--especially the critical ones. I suppose I feel that I have to prove that all those years I spent in school actually amount to something.

Isn't it funny how it is so much easier to criticize than to praise? I wish I were better about that. I guess I can change that right here. You see, the flip side to my critical portrait of my wife is this: She is passionate about the things she loves. When she becomes lost in someone else's words, she is able to become completely absorbed by their newly created world. She sees and hears and tastes and smells--she feels everything. She is in a state of absolute sensual immersion. At least that is how it appears from the outside.

But that is not all. If she loves something, she wants to share it. She wants those she loves to experience it, too.

And that is really the how and the why of all of this--why I became fascinated by the lives of the inhabitants of Charlaine Harris's supernatural Bon Temps, Louisiana--how I fell into J.R. Ward's enclave of Caldwell, New York--how I became intrigued by her Vampire and Lesser fight club. It is how I came to root for Simon over Jace in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instrument Series. ( I'm still rooting for him, by the way--even after the series' conclusion. Just Like I'm still rooting for Sam over the Vampires Bill and Eric in Harris's books.) And how I rooted for Mary to make it down the path and out of the forest of hands and teeth in Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth. I even ended up teaching that one in my Freshman Composition course--the kids love them some zombies.

I have always been a capital "L" Literature guy. Never read a single John Grisham novel.

I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I am not a complete snob. I just prefer to get my pulp entertainment through different media. I love Sci-Fi and reality TV. I love comic books--especially those that focus on origin myths. And I have even been known to sing along at the top of my lungs to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." See. Not a snob.

But books? I drew the line there. I was (and still am) a Cormac McCarthy fan (one who prefers Suttree to the Border Trilogy), and a Walker Percy lover. I liked my novels to provide deep insights into the human condition. I wanted novelists inspired by the philosophies of Sartre and Camus. I liked them dark and hopeless.

If there was vampirism, it had to be of the metaphorical variety. It must explain how we, as humans, suck the life from one another. If there were shape shifters, they must only shift internally--the books must show man devolving into beast like they so often do in the works of Harry Crews. Hell? Hell should only come as Sartre said, in the form of other people.

Surely none of it should be literal. Ha! That is plebeian. I can take that in my comics--but not in my books. Not in my Literature.

Here, my wife might rightly point out the fact that a man completely obsessed with the Muppets has no right to be so self-righteous and intellectually pompous.

To that I would say, "But, uh, but, Jim Henson was a genius. He was freakin' JIM. HENSON."

Then I would drop my head and say, "Touché. I am pompous--and inconsistent. And I wish Gonzo the Great was real and my best friend."

Then I would run to my bedroom and cry, because that dream will never come true.

So . . . Back to vampires and werewolves and demons from hell.

But what do I write? How do I approach this?

I asked my wife what she envisioned when she first brought this whole thing up and this is what she had to say:

"Just write about what you thought about the books. Talk about the writing and the characters. You know--things you wouldn't say to me because you know I'd hurt you."

Okay, if you say so. Into the breach . . .