well behaved women

I literally do not comprehend how the hell Laurell K. Hamilton thinks that forcing her heroine to have sex with people she does not want to have sex with is sexy or exciting. It is rape. Anita is upset by it, horrified by it--almost certainly traumatized by it, though the books focus on the male angst over being neglected because she's being forced to have sex with others. Anita does not find people attractive on the basis of looks alone. Anita very strongly does not want to have sex with someone unless she is in love with them.

RAPE IS NOT FUCKING SEXY, LKH.

So having a male character boast smugly about Anita's awareness of him is not charming, it is not cute. He is bragging about the fact that Anita was completely uninterested in having sex with him, was forced to have sex with him, and is now aware of his body in that physical sense. As a direct result of rape.

I'm going to go slink off into my corner and cry. NOT. SEXY.

Someone said that Blood Noir was taking a step back toward the old Anita, so I picked it up off the shelf at the library and flipped through it. First the aforementioned nauseating bit, then suddenly we're at a part where Jason seriously tells her that because they went off together, they're undermining Jean-Claude's reputation and they have to 'think up a punishment' for themselves so he doesn't look bad. Anita passively listens.

WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE--you know what? He can look bad all he wants, because she's the fucking Executioner and she will kick their asses. Every element in that plot hole is such a gaping example of all the horrible derailments of the early books. Just...what. Just stop, LKH, for god's sake.

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From sugared, here: It appears there are a number of men who are willing to admit to rape provided you don't describe it using the word "rape".

Oh, and I strongly advise against reading the comments. They are largely filled with male commenters continuing to effectively defend certain forms of rape by calling them "gray areas". So.

13-Year-Old Girl Commits Suicide After Classmates Spread Nude Photos

Trigger Warning for discussions of suicide, descriptions of non-consensual sexual conduct, victim-blaming and slut-shaming

As Veronica Arreola said on her Twitter, while the media insists on calling this a "sexting-related suicide," it’s much more accurately referred to as a "slut-shaming suicide." Because the photograph she sent is not what drove this poor girl to kill herself--the non-consensual spreading of the photograph, and the subsequent reaction that her classmates and all adults in positions of authority had to it seems to absolutely have been what drove her to despair. And that is a truly vital distinction to make if we actually care about the fact that a 13-year-old girl is dead, and why.

[...]

And while everyone sure as hell seems to be worried about What! We’re! Teaching! Our! Girls! that they send the photographs, no one seems to be saying a goddamn peep about what we’re teaching our boys when they think that non-consensual sexual conduct is okay. Yet again, apparently consensual female sexuality is seen as a bigger threat to society--and to girls themselves--than non-consensual male sexual behavior perpetrated against them.

[...] And while the article rightfully goes on at length about the certainly awful way that the school dealt with their knowledge that Hope was self-harming and in danger, there is no mention of how the school’s actions also contributed to her being in danger in the first place. The fact is that they punished her--they told her over and over again that she was being called a slut and a whore because of her own actions, that being a "slut" or "whore" are very, very bad things that deserve punishment and bring reason for shame, that sluts and whores deserve to be taken out of school and to be used as an example of what happens when girls display any form of sexuality (with their consent or not), and that sluts and whores cannot be trusted to advise other students, because apparently they have no moral compasses. And the fact is that they apparently failed to punish the other slut-shamers, sexual harassers, bullies, and sexual perpetrators for whom they were responsible.

Hope Witsell made the decision to end her own life. A whole lot of other people seemingly decided that keeping women in their place was a lot more important than protecting a 13-year-old girl, and than stamping out sexual misconduct. A whole society backed that second decision up.

To quote la_vie_noire, whom I got this from: 13 year old girl. Who still is slut shamed even after she is dead. Slut shamed by adults. 13 year old.


Who is taking care of these girls? Who is there for them? I'm sick and horrified and reeling, and I wish I could scream from the rooftops how fucking wrong this is. Not to mention how her parents reacted to it--not helping her or being there for her but punishing her--and how her 'friends'--and trust me, I say that with the deepest contempt, disgust and loathing--reacted to it, telling her it was her fault. She was all alone. Someone was there for me, even impersonally and over the internet, when I began to actually deal with and look at these issues. I wish so badly I or anyone could have been there for her. Could have told her, 'you are not to blame. They are fucking monsters.'

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You know what I'm also really tired of? People bitching about female protagonists having a lot of love interests. There isn't even a whiff of the same over the gender boundary. No one complains about multiple women finding James Bond attractive. But the instant a woman has more than one man interested in her, or is physically attracted to more than one man, or has more than one beau in a series, she's unrealistic, a slut and/or the series is now 'all about her relationships.'

Despite the fact that it is completely natural to find multiple people attractive inside or outside of a relationship. Despite the fact that it is completely natural for a woman to have more than one romantic relationship in her life, yes, even numerous ones. And numerous relationships at one time, and more than one can perfectly realistically have sexual tension or mutual sexual interest in it, fulfilled or unfulfilled. Despite the fact that it is completely natural for, gasp-gasp shock-shock horror-horror, people to be attracted to an attractive woman.

Even if the female character is solving mysteries or kicking ass left and right, people (women) proclaim that multiple suitors make the series All About Her Love Life. Because, you know, once a woman has a relationship her life can't be about her and her heroics and/or failures, it has to be about her relationships. To which I say, that's not the story, it's not a problem with the heroine or her boyfriend(s) or the men interested in her. It's a problem with you. So just admit it and go snivel into your misogyny elsewhere.

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ETA: I kind of suborned the discussion of ableism into sexism, and I didn't really mean to do that. So here's my bitching on the sexism, and I'm moving the quote into a different post.

...Sookie herself in the show is marginalized and undermined constantly; scenes where she saved herself in the books were edited in the TV show by having male characters rush in to save her, and you'll note that their much-lauded ~expansion~ and ~deepening~ of secondary characters really only applies to the male characters. The female characters are given negative portrayals if not completely wiped out of the series. Sookie's competence and intelligence drops to a theatrical extent so that they can make opportunities for the male characters to come in and rescue her. All of a sudden she's naive, arrogant, foolish and even ditzy; none of which could even remotely be attributed to the real Sookie Stackhouse--notably, the one written by a woman--even at her most inexperienced stage. None of the changes contribute anything to the show beyond excuses for the males to have greater power in her life.

None of the male characters, certainly, really acknowledge her difficulties as a person, or even herself as a person. Bill treats her like a belonging; he is condescending, controlling and verbally abusive when she does something he disapproves of. Her compassion is only approved of when it's directed towards him. Sam treats her merely as an object of his desires; he verbally abuses her, sexually harasses her while in a position of power as her employer they both acknowledge they are aware of, shoves her threateningly her against his truck when he realizes she's kissed her boyfriend and, mere days or weeks after she's been brutally assaulted and suffered attempted murder, shouts at her for not paying enough attention to him. Literally. "I'm tired of charring my ass on your back burner!" He whines self-righteously to a woman who is barely beginning to piece her life back together after horrific personal tragedy and violence. It's pretty damn hard to even attempt to claim that a man who would do that gives a shit about the woman in question.

ETA: I mean, think about that. She is explicitly textually condemned for focusing on herself and her trauma rather than A Man Who Deigns to Show Interest.

And these are our heroes. All the writing in the show suggests we are intended to view these men as positive, sympathetic, heroic characters. And if this treatment of our heroine is painted in a positive, acceptable and even desirable light, the message there is pretty clear. Both the narrative and the other main characters react to her according to her heterosexual relationships. As the TV show evolves further from the books, we don't see things from Sookie's perspective so much as we see the men around her, and she chiefly as she reacts to the men around her or they influence her. And, as I'm sure you can predict given the examples presented above, I don't give a fuck about the men around her. I want them all shot. But she's treated so poorly by the writers that the ignorant, callous dismissal of her very real disability is, while a huge problem, hardly the only one.

I don't dislike the changes from the books because they're changes and I'm a purist; I dislike them because the books treat her like and care about her as a person, and the show does not. The show is about the Men, and I'm pretty fucking tired of those.

This marginalization of real life issues is echoed in Tara's behavior and portrayal, and I want to talk about that too, but I'm tired and hurting and depressed, and I have a final tomorrow. Later.

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Someone writes a whole huge essay titled The Lust Arc = IchiHime FAIL which, among other priceless gems of logic, claims that because soppy displays of concern were not made in the midst of a battleground, they TOTES DON'T CARE ABOUT EACH ENOUGH (FOR ME).

I'm not going to address the shipping, because I don't really 'ship in this series and I don't care. What I am going to address if the fact that because a young woman who made an enormously brave choice to sacrifice herself asked for help after an extended period of time where she was isolated, threatened, terrified and had her head fucked with, they explicitly equate her with evil cannibalistic spirits.

I cannot believe I ever even skim the surface of this fandom. I am also not capable of resounding-enough rude gestures over the internet. But it is, in my elegance and eloquence, all I have to offer, because I am still trying not to dissolve into obscenities over rage-inducing things.

I REALLY REALLY NEED SOMETHING LESS RAGE-INDUCING. SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

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Ask Amy tells rape victims they did it to themselves. Any words I would have for this are obscene and full of hate, and I'm trying to cut down on that.

Mike Briggs eloquently debunks the popular arguments supporting piracy one by one.

an NYT article on female desire.

Patrick Stewart on domestic violence. Beautiful.

fiction_theory's lovely post about and containing links concerning the relationships between agents and new writers. Specifically it contains a link to this remark by an agent:

I rejected a manuscript that I had been seriously considering last week because upon a cursory online search, I found a LiveJournal post by the author badmouthing me and several of my colleagues for what she thought were excessive response times. Well, that blog post cost her representation from at least one agent. (OH, and it was a LOCKED LiveJournal post. You do know that Google Reader doesn't respect locked posts, right? Well, you do now.)

I feel like 'mind your damn manners jesus christ' should be sort of an acknowledged constant--ever heard of common courtesy, people? Especially in this type of scenario when you are asking a stranger to take a leap of faith. But entitlement, I have noted, is heavy in many young in America.

Also LOCKED POSTS ARE UNPROTECTED AAAAAAAH **terrified**

ETA: Falconesse with the math behind Harlequin’s vanity press: how many books you’d have to sell to break even, hidden costs, and the like. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to self-publish, vanity publish, or get published.

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All mental points awarded to Rome are revoked. Totally, permanently and irrevocably revoked. Infinite, infinite fail.

I mean, there were some hints previously. The conspicuous casting of Eirene vs Gaia, the skewed amount of white to darker characters in villainous/antagonist roles, the gender!fail inherent in Vorena's portrayal--she's made a prostitute, her attempt to reclaim her sexuality leads to terrible things, and she's redeemed by swearing herself chaste to a goddess. (Oh screw you, show.) Not to mention Atia's obsession with the bottom feeder.

And now their portrayal of Cleopatra.

Cleopatra was a powerful, political, canny queen, reputedly the only Ptolomeic ruler to have actually learnt the Egyptian language. She and Egypt did not exist merely as some subnote to Rome, as some ~exotic~ place all about debauchery and corruption of those fine Roman men. I was nearly nauseated at the whole scene where she had to be 'schooled' by some condescending bastard of a Roman soldier--a woman who grew up in a cutthroat family, ascended to the throne at eighteen, raised a rebellion and won an alliance that raised her once more to the throne, a woman who is intimately familiar with murderous politics.

And yet in Rome, somehow she turns into a completely amoral, depraved druggie who proclaims herself a 'slave' of Caesar and then seems to have nothing to do but sleep with and be rabidly possessive of Anthony as opposed to, say, running her country.

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Okay, so. I've tried to restraint my anger with the Rome fandom to a few tamped-down comments here and there. But it's not going away, so here's my space to scream and rage a bit. Feel free to ignore this post.

( Read more... )

Not that there isn't a perfectly simple explanation. There is! And it's that in fandom, manly angst takes precedence over women's actual suffering and trauma.

SCREW YOU ALL.

ETA: ...I feel a little better now.

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Announcement: I have no idea how I am going to survive Multi-Cultural class this quarter even remotely sane.

The teacher is great. The class would be agonizing instead of infuriating if he wasn't, and after having a long talk with him it's actually not as stressful and upsetting for me anymore. But oh my god, the students...

Today a woman tried to tell me that by dressing scantily, women were 'asking for it.' And then defended the stance at length, one of her arguments being 'it's like putting a steak in front of a dog.' Then right after class, my two table mates (both female) condescendingly did their best to put me in my place. I was ready to spit nails.

People are so goddamn determined to IGNORE the male in this scenario. THIS IS NOT ABOUT A WOMAN'S MANNER OF DRESS. This is about one sentient, conscious, thinking being making the deliberate conscious choice to assault, violate and brutally harm, mentally or physically or both, another sentient, conscious, thinking being.

In other words: STFU. I'm not buying your piping-hot misogyny. Even Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler couldn't sell it.

They also tried to say the women 'weren't respecting themselves.' I wish I'd thought to say at the time; 'no, you aren't respecting them, or yourself, by trying to make excuses for rapists. Get the hell out of my gender and planet.'

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Oh good god.

The Demise of Off Our Backs

An examination--brief--of classism and racism--extensive--within a 'radical' feminist organization. The racism is awe inspiring to behold, fountaining up in a mess of hot, frothing entitlement, malice and prejudice.

Basically, a WOC calls the racist white women on their racism, and one explodes in messy rage, spiteful, appalling and horrifically racist and sexist language, and apparently is now seeking to bring charges against her. (Excerpts in the first link.)

I'm ashamed to know they call themselves feminists.

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A fifteen year old girl was sent to the hospital in critical condition after being gang-raped for two and a half hours. Fifteen people stood around, watched, and did nothing. Some joined in. She was only found--her life was only saved--because someone heard people bragging about it.

"As people announced over time that this was going on, more people came to see, and some actually participated," Gagan said.....The victim was found unconscious and "brutally assaulted" under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday, after police received a call from someone in the area who had overheard people at the assault scene "reminiscing about the incident."

...."This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it," Gagan said. "It was like a horror movie after looking at the evidence. I can't believe not one person felt compelled to help her."

I don't have any commentary for this. I'm just full of pure hatred; rage and terror and concern.

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Marjorie M. Liu on Roman Polanski: Forgive me (again) while I take a moment…

I've posted a barrage of posts on this issue, but this one was especially appreciated by me. Because people are actually saying, 'we shouldn't charge him because the victim has forgiven him!' Disregarding the fact that maybe she just doesn't want to give him an opportunity to make her life hellish all over again. And I would like this to be trumpeted from the rooftops:

Roman Polanski raped a child. Not if, maybe, or possibly—he did it. He did it, he did it, he did it. And then, like the coward son of a bitch he is, he fled the authorities.

Now, most people would say, “Wow, that’s horrific and unspeakable, and he should be punished for his crime. Not just because he hurt a young girl, but because he might do it again.“

Carolyn Jewel: Maybe you'll want to skip this post. Or not. Your Choice

I really thought we'd moved past the days when we blamed women for the violence committed against them. I really did. I didn't think anyone in America today could stand up and blame a 13 year old girl for the actions of a 43 year old man who gave her alcohol and drugs before he got around to having sex with her -- because, damn, she kept saying no!

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Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced

I would recommend this to men or women. This is a beautiful little piece, and while many of the comments are made of win, there are a few that are rage inducing.


You know what? THIS. IS. NOT. OUR. FUCKING. PROBLEM. You do not goddamn well get to tell your victim, the victim of your privilege, to 'stop living in fear' and to 'stand up for yourself instead of being so polite'. You do not get to tell other women that because you have been naive and sheltered enough to think that walking the streets alone at night is as safe as visiting your grandfather, they don't get to be careful of their safety and have a healthy wariness of men.

And oh my god, you do NOT FUCKING GET to tell a woman that being wary of a privileged section of the population that statistically--overwhelmingly statistically--assaults, violates and takes advantage of her is on the same level as racism.

Fuck you, a thousand times over. This is what women and girls grow up learning. This is not 'living in fear' and if women do live in fear you have no fucking right to criticize them for it. This is a sane reaction to the insanity the world likes to visit upon us in the form of rape, assault, sexism, abuse.

I linked to deeply intelligent articles about this issue a while back. I can't be coherent right now. It's beyond me.

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So, remember that book by Jory Strong? The one that I read because I'd gotten its sequel for free? Yeah, that one. Oh my god, the sequel is even worse.

Spider-Touched: Set in the same world, a post-apocalyptic world where supernatural beings have risen to prominence, countered by a pretty stereotypical evil church in power. The main character is a thief named Arana, traveling with two other thieves, men who are lovers and adopted her. Naturally 'teh gays' die immediately. She's pretty badass; she has an angsty past concerning her family, revealed throughout the book, but isn't inclined to dwell on it, being more inclined to being tough, ruthless and intelligent as she pursues vengeance and freedom. She ends up being captured, escaping, and rescuing the hero when she has a vision of him imprisoned. Good start, right? She's pretty awesome, and I was full on liking the book when the hero and heroine were separate.

The good trend does not linger.

First of all: can you stop talking about his sexual organs? Please? He has the same problem as the hero for Ghostland, in that whenever he thinks about the heroine--before he's even met her face to face--he gets hard. Like, it's actually progressed to a comical stage, though I'm pretty sure the author is convinced that it's hot. Sexual attraction doesn't really work that way--which wouldn't be so bad if she didn't use it as a substitute for actual character interaction. She says her characters are in love, but they never do anything but have sex. No conversation, no learning about each other--the hero threatens the heroine every time she does anything of her own volition, but that's about it. Oh wait, there's some hilarious porn-talk. But other than that, nada.

And the whole bit where he threatens her whenever she does anything he hasn't told her to, or does something he tells her not to, or wants to keep something private--seriously. THREATENS HER--is just so, so awful, and even worse in this one. And the book expects us to find it oh-so-hot.

Oh, and he's an angel. He's actually like several prominent characters in Angel's Blood by Nalini Singh, only much worse--more like Dmitri, actually, whom I hated--which in retrospect makes the fact that I considered them defensible both embarrassing and worrying.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with this book, since I'm not finishing it and don't particularly want to keep it. I'd donate it to the library, but I'd like to refrain from exposing anyone else to this if at all possible.

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I was just reading a story where the female character is drunk--and in the middle of initiating foreplay when the story starts--and I'm skimming along, flowery prose, trite OOC, yeah; and then I get to a part where the male character says something like, 'if i'd known you'd be this...responsive, I would have gotten you intoxicated much sooner.'

And which point I stared at the screen with my mouth hanging open in transfixed horror. I'm fighting the urge to comment with 'you know that's rape, right? She's drunk. She cannot give informed consent. You give no sign that she was interested (in canon she is not) before he got her drunk. YOU ARE HAVING THIS CHARACTER PAT HIMSELF ON THE BACK FOR RAPING HER.' And presenting it as a romantic statement, no less. I mean, it will almost certainly do no good to share this fact. I've kind of given up on actually getting through to these people a while ago out of sheer weariness. But--but--

**headdesk**

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NuSpidey stories: Marvel writer officially comments on the rape of Michelle Gonzales

The Marvel writer, Fred Van Lente, responded with 'well, I know he pretended to be someone she cared about and had sex she could not possibly give informed consent to, but it wasn't rape! Don't be silly! It was a bad, bad thing though.' Finishing off with a snide comment about how 'he insults parapelegics too!'

What a loathsome little toad. Not to mention delusional. Yes, dear, it is rape. Not debatable.

However, since he admitted it was a bad, bad thing, one would think he would actually, as a writer, deal with it as a bad, bad thing, right? No. He treats it as comedic; as a burden to Peter, since now she thinks they're in a relationship, and does not for one heartbeat address the fact that Michelle has been physically and emotionally violated by a complete stranger, she has the right to know she has been raped, and it is a horrible, traumatic thing that has happened. Instead Peter lapses into self pity. (small section quoted from post)

The comics industry of today, people.

A beautiful, coherent entry on the subject.

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Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

Only rapists can prevent rape

These are lovely, but the fact that they're necessary is rage-worthy.

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Okay! Character derailment, character derailment. Book!Sookie would never have allowed some male to act like and say that he owned her, never mind say it herself. Never. She's very clear on the subject, repeatedly, as any sane woman is. Are these writers honestly stupid enough to think that's romantic?

Why do so few writers--TV, movies, books, music, anything--have enough brains to comprehend the concept of a partnership? You know, what a healthy relationship is supposed to be? Then again, these are the same writers that tried to write a verbally abusive asshole who sexually harasses his employees as a protagonist. I'm actually not surprised. Nauseated, but not surprised.

I really wish the book and TV characters would meet. SouthernGentleman!Sam would kick sleazebag!Sam's ass to the curb.

How did I miss this the first time through? Oh right, I clicked away the minute Bill muscled up and started snarling at her for going somewhere without his permission.

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I'm more tired than angry right now, but I'm trying to run down a list of exactly what is so wrong with people insulting Sookie because she isn't eager to jump Eric Northman, amoral mastermind extraordinaire.

( exhibit a: she has absolutely no reason to be )

Jo! Jo is back! Doing unspecified unpleasant things to...I think it's Sam? Jo I love you.

Of course, it's a scene with a woman and what looks like a black man allied against an ~Ultra Speshul Winchester~. They're going to die. God I hate that show.


In other news--meganbmoore, looks like G.I. Joe fell through on that potential big time. **mentally flips off movie makers in general**

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Okay, so this is the only Twilight fic I have ever and will ever read and I only read it because I was greedy for another this girl writes and man, it is kind of awesome. Like, so awesome. It kind of makes me like the character oh my god! (I love the line about her mother.)

On a less upbeat note--jesus, guys. Fandom in general. I can't even get angry over this, the issues at the root hurt so much. Stop hating on the girls. Stop it. Just because they're in the same show or book or movie as the guy you like. Just because they have spine and don't jump him the second they can. Just because they don't have that insulating layer of fiction between them and have the common sense not to get off without reserve on dangerous men, or get in the way of your OTP. Please. It hurts. I'm trying to nose through fic and meta and whatever on new and old fandoms alike and I'm just like...god, guys. Please.

This message is brought to you by someone calling Sookie filthy names because they perceived her as being...what, not nice enough to Jason? Who in the series has hit her, stolen from her and generally treated her like shit and in the book series has thrown her to the wolves at every possible opportunity. I feel so wrung out from dealing with this in every fandom I come across.

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If one more person tries to tell me that if a girl can't beat up/kill things she's not a strong character, or that she's not a good/worthwhile character because she's not 'useful', I will fucking EXPLODE.

GET YOUR GODDAMN MISOGYNY OFF MY FUCKING INTERNETS.


**whimpers and reaches vainly for my vaporizing good mood**

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"....female made for a man's pleasure. His pleasure."

"Strength of purpose gave Aisling the courage to stand up to [the hero]..."

This book is like a trainwreck. An unattractive one.

I'm trying to slog through it, since I now own the second one in the series--won it in random draw, as mentioned before--but it's really, really bad. The main characters have no real interaction beyond sex and irrational, unnatural sexual obssession. As there is in poor romance novels, there is occasionally a token mention of attractive nonphysical characteristics, and it's unconvincing. When she says 'no' to a sexual advance he makes, he ignores her and overpowers her. When she tries to make her own decisions and use her power, he gets furious. It's horrible.

For a bonus, there's some rather suspicious similarities to another series that make me roll my eyes.

Also, Aisling thinks about how terrible it would be to have sex without love. What, really? This coming from the woman who leapt in bed with someone a day or so after meeting him? Which I have no problem with--but way to be a hypocrite, honey. It kind of drives home how the author really thinks that the instantaneous overpowering lust actually is a substitute for that pesky writing-actual-emotional-interaction thing!

My summary of this book so far: congratulations! You've actually managed to make a relationship more unhealthy and much more unpleasant to read than Twilight's Bella and Edward.

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Strange snippets of my life: I've been listening to Samuel's YuGiOh anime (I'll try not to share my opinion of the Yugioh anime. Hint: it isn't good, especially since all he gets are dubs) going in the background all day. The name Noah is used, and variants of the term, "I WANT YOUR BODY!" and "I WILL HAVE YOUR BODY!" have been cycling. I swear, they don't go thirty seconds without it!

In other news, I got Ghostland from the library, actually checking it out only a day before the second book, which I won in a random draw, arrived. Unfortunately--it looked so very cool--it seems to be very so-so fare; the writing is mediocre, the characterization consisting of long and cliched descriptions of her loveliness and his godlike beauty and throbbing cock. They have instant overpowering sexual attraction for each other, blah blah blah. Then there's a scene--the morning after sex, she's having second thoughts, he comes into the bathroom and she tells him no. He ignores her. At this point I gave a convulsive shudder of horror and skimmed on flinchingly to see that he arouses her against her will until she asks him for it, and this is supposed to be romantic and somehow indicative of how romantical his forcefulness is and how strong their attraction is, sexual attraction meaning, in bad romance novels, true love.

Just--augh.

ETA: Also, every time he thinks of her, he gets hard. Seriously. He'll get hard, go on for a couple of paragraphs, think of her and get hard again. So presumably it comes and goes--all the blood coming to and fro must be getting whiplash. If there was a drinking game based on it...well, it would be a very successful drinking game.

To any who likes vampires--or, for that matter, doesn't like vampires but likes a good book--I would like to recommend Vivian Vande Velde's Companions of the Night. It's a fascinating story, and well written, and it doesn't really romanticize the vampires at all. It's a look at a modern predator through the eyes of a teenage girl, and Kerry is just lovely, scared but brave and tough and smart.

I was idling around looking at icons for Kerry, and I found this post of Natalie Portman. Not only is Natalie Portman a big name/face, but normally she's a much too polished type of gorgeous for Kerry. But those first icons, from Where the Heart Is, I think work temptingly okay.

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