Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

The Bitchery inbox, it is a busy place. Candy and I received an email asking us to give our readers a heads up regarding the campaign of Theresa Spry, who is running as a Democrat against incumbent state Senator Bill Napoli.

Remember Bill Napoli? Yeah, the “rape is real only if it’s hella rape” dude.

Ms. Spry is a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation and has an absolute monster list of qualifications and experience that would make her an excellent addition to the state senate of South Dakota. Plus there’s that issue of Bill Napoli’s description of who might be “entitled” to an abortion:

There is one more reason this race is so very important. My opponent, incumbent Senator Bill Napoli, is a leader of the extremist faction of the legislature that this year gave us HB 1215. The controversial abortion bill that is so extreme that thousands of people strongly opposed it. You may recall Senator Napoli’s defense of that bill on National Television. When asked why there were no exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, Senator Napoli invented one. He said: “a real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl is a virgin. She is religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it and is impregnated. I mean that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying the child could very well threaten her life”

In this case, Senator Napoli “reasoned” that the woman would be entitled to obtain an abortion. Apparently he has never actually read the bill. No one else who has read it can find this exception.

My Campaign has before it the task of informing thoughtful men and women in this district about Mr. Napoli’s extremist views, of which this dreadful misogyny is but one example. To make it very clear that he simply does NOT represent the voters of
District 35. 

Candy and I, despite not being anywhere close to South Dakota, want to make every effort to help Ms. Spry in her efforts to unseat Bill Napoli. I’ve created a fundraising site through ActBlue: Smart Bitches for Theresa Spry. Creating this site will enable Ms. Spry’s campaign to know that donations are coming through our site, and will enable us to know how much we’ve raised. Political donations are capped in South Dakota at $250.00US, so that means any amount is helpful.

Please note: due to regulations surrounding political donations, your donation will be logged under your legal name and will be public record at various sites.

There’s been some commentary recently as to whether this is a political site or a romance novel site. I want to be clear: this is a specific example of an issue we both feel strongly about, and our response to Napoli, by whose actions we were horrified. We’re not turning into Smart Bitches-Daily Kos, and we fully recognize that readers who come to our site for news and dish on romance novels come from all positions on the political spectrum. We respect your views, and we respect even more our collective ability to disagree and discuss our positions with respect and candor - something that has been sorely lacking in most online and televised political debate.

We are not demanding that you donate; if this isn’t an issue that speaks to you, we completely understand. But we wanted to make it as easy and collaborative an effort as possible, hence our campaign site at ActBlue.

(And here Candy pipes up like a smart-ass to say: C’mon. You know you want to help do your part in napoling Napoli.)

Bitchery man Kevin was kind enough to forward me a press release about Four Weeks, an ezine tailored to the subscriber’s menstrual cycle. If your hormones are at a make-you-active stage, it’ll give you ideas for exercise. If your hormones are at a make-you-mellow stage, you get ways to unwind. If your hormones make you happy, clap your hands!

*crickets*

Anyway, I was monstrously amused by the concept, and I immediately started to wonder if we should start a similar ezine, wherein we tailor our romance recommendations for your cycle. Seriously: psycho hose beast? Do you want to seethe with rage at bad writing? We have some recommendations! Is it powerhouse superwoman time? We can bomb your pink scallop shell with some fine ass-kicking heroines.

Whaddya think!? 

Laura Kinsale sent us a link to a rant she wrote on her own BB, wherein she discusses political correctness clashing with her desire and goal to write a good story.

Kinsale’s frustration is with readers who expect enlightened heroes (read: not ‘old fashioned’ alpha heroes) but bemoan the lack of good stories:

I read a lot--a LOT--of reader commentary on the various romance sites regarding things like alpha heroes and “rape” and “forced seduction” and how all that is so 1970’s (or 80’s or 90’s, take your pick depending on your age) but we’re all enlightened modern women now and we just don’t like that sort of thing. Then in the next thread will be complaints that the genre just isn’t as compelling or interesting as it used to be and readers can’t find books they really enjoy, and gee, why are all the heroes vampires now?

The trend, as she calls it, of self-conscious political correctness in romance is somewhat stifling to Kinsale as a writer, and a recent review in Salon gave her the context to express what had been irritating her.

A few Bitchery readers have sent me a veritable buffet of links regarding a recent J.R. Ward fluff online at her author-hosted bulletin boards. Seems a reader went to Ward’s BB community, and posted her opinion about Ward’s series, specifically about the slang used by some characters, and the gay undertones in some of the scenes, and asked if anyone noticed the same things she noted.

I can’t link to the thread in question as it’s for members only. But from my understanding, the writer of the original post was blasted online by “rabid fangirls” of Ward’s community, and ultimately ended up banned from the boards.  Since I can’t directly read the thread or witness the alleged harshness that greeted this reader’s questions, I have rely on what others have said.

What strikes me as curious is that a few bloggers hold Ward responsible for the behavior of the fans on her site. DishingDiva states that the boards are hosted and moderated by Ward and thus the attacks and banning were condoned as she must have been aware that they were happening.

Now, we here at SBTB, we are big fans of authors behaving in entertaining fashion, and we are more than aware that there are some people out there on the wild, wild internet that take their reading very, very seriously. But is an author responsible for the allegedly buttheaded behavior of their readership?

I pose the same question to myself - if we were (un)fortunate to attract a troll, would it be my responsibility to ban and delete that user’s posts until they signed up again under a different user name from a different IP? Looking at it from a “person who hosts the discussion” perspective, I’d have to say that I’m not entirely responsible for what other people say. If someone signed up for membership and started posting after every review how much Candy and I suck and how we’re absolutely horrible people to be so mean to those nice romance writers like Cassie Edwards, it’d be annoying but I’d probably let it stand, since hey, that’s their opinion and they’re welcome to it, even on our site.

In fact, I’d lose credibility if I started deleting the posts I disagreed with, or banning users who caused trouble on the site. I’m not saying I love the squabbles just for their own sake, but no one here has disgreed by name calling or demanding that they be banned from the register of Bitches. If that’s what happened on Ward’s site, if she deleted the original poster because she didn’t want gay undertones discussed on the site, well, it’s her prerogative to edit her boards however she wants, though I’d disagree heartily with that decision.

I also know the community here is pretty intelligent and enjoys a good discussion, even a heated one from multiple points of view, and would probably ignore a troll until it went away. Or at least have some delicious fun at its expense. At the very least, I can always count on the Bitchery members to disagree with class and style, even when heated issues light up the stats like someone farted on a match.

So do I think Ward is responsible for the behaviour of her fans? Nah. Was it a dumb move to ban a user who asked questions that some fans didn’t like? Yup. Does it suck that people can be buttnoids online? Sure it does. But then, some people out there think Candy and I are the buttnoids.

Avast! It be Talk like a Pirate Day so be ye of good cheer, saucy wenches!

And many thanks be to the Bitcherrrry readerrrrs who sent me the following instructional video, should you need a primerrrr on how to Talk like a Pirate.

So grab a tanker of grog, and keep your roger jolly, eh? Yaaaaaaaaaar!