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

I don’t usually use Smart Bitches to overtly rant and rave about politics; this site is for romance novels, after all. But I’m going to make a special exception for Bill Napoli, a Republican state senator for South Dakota who had these words of wisdom to say about acceptable rape exceptions for the abortion ban:

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was 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 that child could very well threaten her life.

An acquaintance of mine, Sylvia, referred to this as “hella rape,” which is quite possibly the best damn phrase I’ve read all year.

At any rate, fuckwittery should not go unrewarded. I’m thinking we should do to Napoli what Dan Savage did to Rick Santorum. The nifty thing is, Napoli himself has provided an excellent definition. I propose the following entry be entered into the lexicon:

napoli (not to be confused with the proper noun, which indicates the Italian city)
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): napolied
Pronunciation: nA’poli

1. To brutalize and rape, sodomize as bad as you can possibly make it, a young, religious virgin woman who was saving herself for marriage. 2. To hella rape somebody.

Etymology: From State Senator Bill Napoli’s (R-SD) words on an acceptable description of rape that would merit an exemption from South Dakota’s abortion ban.

Now, popularizing this term is going to take a little help from you guys.

First of all, I’ve created a little page with the definition for “napoli.” LINK TO http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/billnapoli with “Bill Napoli” as the anchor text. The link should look like this:

Bill Napoli

This is known as Google-bombing.

Second of all: Urbandictionary.com. I’ve submitted the entry, and it’s currently awaiting editorial approval. Once it’s up, I’m going to post a link here, and I hope enough of you guys vote on it that it becomes the top result for “napoli.” (Gawd, I feel bad for Napoli, but...not bad enough.)

And feel free to refer people to both the Bill Napoli definition page and this page, of course.

C’mon, everybody! With a little help, we can hopefully make napoli the new santorum.

There’s something missing in this article about the advent of romantic erotica. Is it mentioning of explicit sex?

No, the article covers that.

Discussion of self-confident heroines with adventurous sexual appetites? Yup.

Hmmm. Creation of erotica imprints from established publishing houses? Yeah, that’s in there.

So what’s missing from this article?

Could it be ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER of Ellora’s Cave? Hello?! “Berkley was a pioneer with its Heat line last May”??!! Are you kidding me?

Gee whiz. For a million-dollar genre, you’d think the writer would find reference to EC quick enough in her research. Of course, it is USA Today, which Hubby and I call “McNews.” Perhaps I ask too much.

Nah, I don’t. To write about the popularity of erotica and not mention EC? That was boneheaded, no pun intended.

This video is gayer than two gay men having sex, and that’s pretty gay.

I mean it. Just when you think it can’t get any more gay, IT DOES.

Seriously. It has Kurt Browning, Alexei Yagudin, John Zimmerman and assorted other ice skaters wiggling, writhing and pumping in tight-ass cowboy outfits. To the remixed version of Elvis’s “A Little Less Conversation.”

In summary: GAY. Hot as hell, and gay, gay, gay.

(Update: Broke my poor little Catfoodguide server, but bless JT for uploading ze video to Youtube.)

Sometimes during lunch, I google “romance” or “romantic” in Google:News and see what comes up. Today, the day after Valentine’s Day, I figured I’d find a few articles from the news feeds about proposals, gettin’ some on Valentine’s Day, or what the card stores do with all the leftover heart-shaped boxes of candy.

But no: it’s a cornucopia of the romantic efforts of the vaguely creepy.

First, we have a story about a new website that enables you to track down and flirt online with hot people in neighboring cars when you’re stuck in traffic. Because picking your nose isn’t enough of an activity, Ben Phillips has decided the new and best way to hook up with hot people is to… mark your car with a decal so other people can look you up online. Imagine the poetry that can come of this:

“Your headlights are perfect
and your bumper is, too.
I’ve got your decal number
so how ‘bout a screw?”

Then there’s high school junior Paul Kim, who spent his hard-earned money delivering roses to every female student in his graduating class. Nice gesture, but he underestimated by 100 students. I hope the boy gets at least a date out of it, though.

And finally, which is a more romantic film? Titanic or Brokeback Mountain? And while I’m asking the internet doofy questions, ¿Quién ES más macho, Fernando Lamas, o Ricardo Montalban?

Updated to add:

An anonymous Bitchery reader was kind enough to send me this splash of a PR release: Romance Novels: Are They the Antidote to a Dreary Sex Life? It’s a promotional piece for a specific book, “Midwinter Turns to Spring,” but it cites two journals as evidence that romance readers know how to get it on:

Women who read romance novels make love with their partners 74% more often than women who don’t, according to Psychology Today. Furthermore, when women fantasize frequently (as they do when they read romance novels), they have sex more often, have more fun in bed, and engage in a wider variety of erotic activities, according to a report in Psychological Bulletin.

Now, I’m having a spot of trouble finding the study in question. I’ve found a previously-linked study about male body issues and the whole size-matters question, and I’ve found articles about using your love story to find your perfect mate. There’s even discussion on the healthful results of sexual fantasy. I’m down with that, but where’s the stuff about how if we read them trashy books wit’ the man-titties, we’re all fired up in the sack?

Hmm. I smell dubious PR.

But being of a mildly scientific bent (read: not scientific at ALL) I queried all of my husbands as to whether my love of romance novels has improved our sex life. He said: “I don’t know.  I’ve never been married to someone who doesn’t read romance novels.  But I’ll go with true.”

I can see how it might be true, certainly. To quote Candy, “Bitch. Please.” One good sex scene and many a reader is all, “Yo! Hubby! BOOTY CALL!”

And it’s not just the external mental stimulation that can make one go off and seek some happy action. Reading romance reminds me of the value of my own romance, and certainly makes me more attentive to the health of my marriage. Erotica & romantica were probably one of the best discoveries I made last year, if you queried the husbands living in my house.

I’m sure that the idea that romance novels are good for the gettin’ it on is sound - but I’m not sure that the referenced studies exist. You can read about what men and women consider romantic but I haven’t found any references to romanve novels on the Psychology Today website. Perhaps a Bitchery reader will have better skills and luck in the search than I have.

But dubious PR or not - what do you think? True? False? Or are you too busy “reading” right now to type?