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

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

*facepalm*

Wait. Oh, great. The Communist Manifesto is more dangerous than Mein Kampf? Whaaaa?

Other dangerous books that made the list include The Kinsey Report (because it gives “a scientific gloss to the normalization of promiscuity and deviancy"), John Dewey’s Democracy and Education and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The Origin of the Species only got an honorable mention and wasn’t in the top 10, ditto The Second Sex. Frankly, I’m shocked.

Personally, I don’t believe in classifying books as dangerous. There are only dangerous people. Dangerously stupid people, that is.

p.s. It’s not necessarily the books on the list that piss me off, though that’s certainly part of it. I think the idea of dangerous book lists are pretty retarded in general. I’d think lists that tried to claim that works like, say, Atlas Shrugged, The Theory of Money and Credit and Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism as being dangerous would be equally ridiculous.

Behold! For guessing the correct answer to today’s Personal Ad challenge, we now dub Alyssa:

May you use that title wisely.

Today’s Personal Ad Contest is going to be a motherfucking CAKEWALK, y’all. Work has been kicking my ass, trying to write that monster feminism/social responsibility/blablablaBLA rant has been kicking my ass, and reading three different books at once? Kicking. My. Ass. So I’m picking a really easy, really famous book for this week’s contest.

First person to post the heroine’s name, title of the book and author wins one of our caramel-a-licious Smart Bitch titles.

Russian Royalty Seeking Sanctuary

Single Russian female, falsely accused of murder, seeks sanctuary in England from crazy-ass royal cousin out to kill me. Are you a lonely widower with a difficult female child? Let me help.

Warning: Contains loads of squickish TMI about Candy and her narsty habits. Has NOTHING to do with romance novels. Don’t read if you’re squeamish or don’t like me going all off-topic.

Like Jorie, I know I shouldn’t touch the current fanfic discussion on Lee Goldberg’s blog with a ten-foot pole. However, she had a quote that irked her (shit, it irked me too), and then I found another one quite a bit later down the line, and I feel compelled to blog about it. From commenter David Montgomery:

Writing is to Making Love as FanFic is to Masturbation

The latter pair are self-indulgent, vaguely embarrassing, accomplish nothing, and only temporarily enjoyable. They are largely the province of adolescent boys and are in no way practice for the real thing.

Well, I always suspected it, and now I have proof: I’m a fourteen-year-old boy. And I don’t even have the decency to feel embarrassed--not even vaguely--by my habit. Accomplish nothing? Shit, I can think of any number of things rubbin’ the nubbin’ has helped me with--relieving stress, putting me in a good mood, helping me sleep, providing me with solo pleasure, and providing some really, really Fun Fun Happy Times when indulging in it with a lover. Temporarily enjoyable? So are most pleasures. Is the afterglow from Making Lurve somehow more long-lasting than the afterglow from masturbation? Not in my experience, but hey, I’m just one monkey-spanker and I can’t speak for anyone else. Not practice for the real thing? Au contraire. Thanks to my rather precocious explorations, I was able to direct the boys to where they needed to be when the time came (har har, came), especially when de-virginizing boys.

Oh, OK, I’ve only popped the cherry for ONE person.

And just in case you don’t know: I don’t read fanfic, I don’t write fanfic, and I’m not enough of a fan of anything to indulge in either activity anytime soon. However, self-righteous attitudes about how fanfic writers will NEVER BE REAL WRITERS and ALL of fanfic is wrong and always will be wrong world without end, amen, bother me. And frankly, so do people who malign masturbation.

Seriously, it’s a toss-up right now which one irritates me more. If whacking off doesn’t feel all that good to you, I think you’re probably doing it wrong. And as for the whole “masturbation is embarrassing and pointless and should only be indulged in when you’re in dire straits and is indicative that you’re a LOSAR WHO CAN’T GET REAL GURLS” shame-fiesta? Yeah, whatever. I refuse to be shamed. (I bet I could get real girls, too. I’m totally going to ask MacKenzie to the prom, and I totally bet she’ll say yes and let me go all the way to second base, woo!)

Frankly, I’m more embarrassed by the fact that to this day, I will occasionally cave in to my craving for Spam-n-egg sandwiches.

I know, I know. Talk about embarrassing and perverse. Damn that Spam. As always, I blame my mother: if she hadn’t made all those delicious Spam and fried egg sandwiches for me when I was a young, impressionable child, I’m sure I would’ve been immune to this perversion as an adult. Parents, be careful about what kind of meat your children are putting into their mouths (and hands).

I mentioned in a comment how much the overly-beefed heroes pictured on book covers bother me, especially when the hero is described inside as lithe, slender, and not at all ‘roided and ripped within an inch of his life. I like to think the heroes of the books I read can straighten their arms with ease, and aren’t walking around with bow-flexed biceps and triceps that keep their arms in a permanent “Ugga eat. Ugga sleep. Ugga get woman!” position.

So who do I picture when I read these books? A much-taller Hugh Grant who is not so almighty twitchy. Colin Firth. Hugh Jackman. That really hot dude from the Weather Channel. It depends on the setting but I’m almost never thinking of Fabio when I read.

What about you? Who is on your list of mental heroes?