Sunday, January 12, 2014

Harlequin--chapter 16

Yes. I cheated and put this off. Because it's every bit as horrible as you think it's going to be.

It's a sex scene between Anita and Richard. Or rather, half of it is sex. The other half is just stupid.

It opens with Anita licking water off Richard's penis, and I have to say this is the biggest bathtub I've ever heard of.

I licked and drank the water until his body lengthened and hardened.
So Richard's entire body turns into a seven foot cucumber? Gotcha. (LAUREL. SAY. PENIS.)

He put two fingers inside me, and he actually closed his eyes, concentrating, searching, until he found that spot, no bigger than a fifty-cent piece, that spot just inside and to the front of the opening.
Oh for FUCK'S SAKE. One: It's a vagina. Not an opening. And it's the G-Spot, not "That spot". You are a FIFTY YEAR OLD SEXUALLY ACTIVE WOMAN. USE YOUR FUCKING WORDS. (Hey, that's a double entendre...) Two: If the G-spot is as big as a fifty-cent piece inside the vagina it shouldn't be hard to find.

“You’re wet,” he said, in a voice that was a little strangled with need.
SHE WAS IN THE BATHTUB NUMBNUTS. OF COURSE SHE'S WET.

And then they have a scramble for a condom because it's not like they were totally planning sex for the last half hour or anything. However, Laurell gets an e-cookie for remembering that promoting safe sex is important. Now if she could just find her way to "Safe, Sane and Consentual" we'd be in great shape.

Condoms lived in the bathrooms and bedrooms of any place I was alone with the men.
The whole "Inanimate object lived" thing works when you're being cutesy. Now is not the time. Here it just sounds like the condom is mouth-breathing in the corner every time Jean Claude or Asher take a dump.

Richard begs Anita to feed on him.

I am going to pretend VERY HARD that Richard has managed to turn a major trigger issue into a turn-on, because the alternative is too fucking creepy for me to go. Seriously, this whole "Rape victim has sex with their abuser" is creeping me the fuck out. It's consensual this time, but it's still REALLY creepy.

The end of him found the end of me, so that each stroke hit as far into my body as it could, and still he came in and in, so hard, so fast, he was almost a blur in the mirrors.

So basically Richard is jackhammering her cervix so fast she can't track his movements. Oh, and she repeats that "blur in the mirrors" part once more when Richard starts going faster.

I fed on Richard’s energy, fed on the part of him that was wolf, and human. I fed on all of him, took in every last delicious inch of his power, as I took in every last delicious inch of his body. When he let himself go like this, he gave so much energy.

Please GOD tell me they remembered to protect the St. Louis pack. PLEASE tell me that Richard, at least, had the presence of mind to shield that connection off. Otherwise Anita just raped 800+ people in the city of St. Louis.

And of course, after the sex Anita is badly damaged from Richard's ramming speed. Oh, she's experianced this with Micah, so it's alright, but unlike all of the Micah/Anita sex scenes this one happens on screen instead of off. Because we want to see EXACTLY how much Richard has hurt Anita through consensual sex.

“It isn’t hurt the way you say it, Richard. I’m not hurt, I hurt; it’s not the same thing.”

The FUCK?

So Richard goes all "I hurt you and enjoyed it" and Anita is all "Yeah, but I didn't mind so it's okay" and this repeats while we get exceptional descriptions of Anita's severe post-sex cramps.

“I didn’t know if you could take this, Anita. I didn’t know if I would break you. The thought that I might fuck you until I pushed my way into parts of your body that should never be touched, excited me.

So Richard was trying to literally impale Anita on his dick. Gotcha.

Anita, of course, has a steller reply.

“I’m not sure it’s sick at all. You didn’t do it. You just thought about it.
He didn't just think about it, Anita. HE ACTUALLY TRIED TO DO IT. He didn't rip you apart with his teeth but he did just admit to trying to hurt you. And for the record, there are certain fantasies that aren't safe. Rape fantasies with yourself as the rapist, for example. It's a gray area, but you become the parts of yourself that you feed. There's a REASON certain kinds of porn are banned, and why the rape e-books got yanked from Amazon and Kobo last year. Saying "You only think about it so that's okay" is UTTER FECKING NONSENSE.

Richard realizes that Anita's cramping is getting more severe, so he gets up to get a doctor. Anita protests that she's fine, she just needs a little more recovery time.

I don't think you're supposed to have heavy bleeding and cramps after good sex.

Richard then realizes that Anita is really experianced because of Micah and he throws a little hissy fit that Anita's feild has been plowed by everyone except him, and he doesn't get any firsts.

And then they start talking about Rania, and how Anita could summon Rania to make her cramps better.

Rania is probably my series kryponite. I dislike what Richard's evolved into (a pretty effective plot bullet) but I HATE Rania. She worked as a villian. She is HORRIBLE as a protagonist tool and--

Raina’s ability to heal was something I had retained. It had been one of the reasons that Richard had made her munin, instead of leaving her body to rot.
I do NOT remember it being like that. I remember that Rania became Munin because that's what happened. I do NOT remember Richard deciding to keep a SEXUAL SADIST MURDERER on as magic. And given that Rania was also his rapist and he hated her 100% of the time, I can't imagine him electing to do that EVER.

...you know, I think Richard probably needs to take a good, long look at his choice in women because I'm detecting a pattern here.

Richard explains that Rania was his first, so she broke him in on causing rough, awful pain and that's why he likes to fuck Anita until she bleeds.

The chapter kind of winds down with Richard and Anita talking about what Rania did to him and then him wandering off to take a shower.  End of chapter.

10 comments:

  1. I hate how LKH has to make Anita this super special snowflake because she likes having her cervix rammed, when it can be dangerous to a woman to have her cervix slammed like that during sex. It's not about some women love it and some don't, the fact of the matter is you can badly damage the cervix by ramming repeatedly in it to the point that there is blood. I knew a girl who was dating a guy with a massive dick, (seriously, she showed pictures of it), who was large enough that he kept hitting her cervix. The repeated pounding and subsequent damage resulted in multiple UTIs for her, and she had to go the ER on one occasion.

    LKH likes to portray Anita as this super sex queen who is able to do things that other woman can't, and other women are evil prudes because they can't have sex the way Anita can. But the reality is that women physically can't do something like this, not without risking their health, and the only reason Anita can get away with it is because she has the magic vagina that heals all wounds and keeps itself virginal tight forever. The irony of this is that LKH likes to pretend that her sex is very accurate and informational to all who read it, then she writes shit like this which is not only a lie but potentially dangerous.

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    1. That is EXACTLY the biggest problem I have with LKH's writing. The sex she writes about is physically dangerous. The relationships she writes about are beyond toxic and potentially deadly. I have seen relationships EXACTLY like Anita's, sans the poly sex, and they are not healthy. I've had to play ground control for people so wound up by their manipulative shit of a SO that they're suicidal and too scared of the fallout to call for professional help. A couple times I wound up riding my bike through my city at midnight because I had no idea where the person was, but I knew they were too upset to be alone.

      Having ANYTHING re-enforce that type of relationship as good, normal, manageable, or ANYTHING praiseworthy is so fucking irresponsible my mind breaks every time I try to comprehend it. That's also why the better-than-thou bullshit is IMHO dangerous. It makes Anita's behavior something to imitate and aspire to. Anita's behavior IRL would require a professional intervention to save her life.

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  2. I assume that Raina being a munin is being painted as Richard's doing now because otherwise St. Anita would be *choosing* to keep the homicidal rapist nutbag around and gods forbid she ever be responsible for anything, much less something like that.

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    1. See, I never read it as that at all. I read it as Anita trying to access wolf magic and Rania being on the top because she's pissed at being dead. Not her fault, not his fault, just a really shitty play by a really dark universe. My problem wasn't that Rania was there, it was that eventually Anita quit viewing using her as wrong and began deliberately seeking her out.

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  3. I'm sorry, I know there are many many other wrongnesses to comment on, but I'm stuck at

    It opens with Anita licking water off Richard's penis,

    Because this gave me the image of Anita as a gerbil nuzzling at Dick's dick like the tube of a water bottle, and now I'm stuck with that in my head.

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  4. The fuck is a fifty-cent piece? Does she mean a half-dollar? Who uses those anymore? Who says that term and in what century? Also that actually sounds really fucking HUGE whoa.

    Saying the condoms lived makes me imagine them as being a sort of mold.

    I’ve been having mixed feelings myself on what to make of rape fantasies when the person is fantasizing about being the rapist instead of the victim, because it does really skeeve me out personally but I’m not sure if that’s okay on my part if it’s really just fantasies is all, and you make a good point on that I hadn’t considered with the “feeding it” part.

    …what? Richard made Raina munin? I don’t remember that either, if I recall that’s just what happens to werewolves when they die, no one makes it happen. And Anita’s super-healing comes from being a Human Servant and a panwere. The munin can let Anita heal *others* through sex, is that what she meant?

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    1. I think she does. And you could probably cram a half dollar into your va-jay-jay but it might be a little tricky getting it back out again.

      I haven't heard ONE story about a serial predator that did not start with "I fantasized about X on a regular basis." Both male and female. It might be possible to have a non-con kink with you as the aggressor and not the victim and never step over the line, but you had better be goddamn careful in how you think and how you act to make sure you protect yourself and your partner. And the kind of behavior pattern being described here is VERY, VERY dangerous because Richard just ACTIVELY TRIED TO HURT ANITA and ACTIVELY GOT OFF ON THE ATTEMPT. Having Anita dismiss it as "just thinking about it" normalizes a behavior pattern frequently ends with dead women. It's a strong escalation in violent thinking. The only other place I've read about that kind of step is in true crime books about serial killers who include some form of rape or sexualization of the victim in their crime. What you put into your head will eventually be what comes back out of it. It's why there's such an emphasis on representation, equal rights, dignified and accurate portrayals of minority groups. People are attempting to enforce a healthy, respectful attitude towards other people by putting examples of that attitude on display. If instead you feed yourself violent, objectified images of women (or men), and every time you look at a woman you imagine damaging her to the point of mental and physical collapse, that will enforce the part of you that actually wants to make it happen. The same way the actor imagines getting an Oscar or a writer envisions getting movie deals and placing on bestseller lists, rapists imagine hurting victims LONG before they make their first move. It's possible to have that kink, be safe and never hurt your partner...but you have to be incredibly careful and have extraordinarly good self awareness, and be capable of both listening to your partner and respecting their wishes to the letter.

      Given that most rape fantasies are fueled by an intense hate of the sex and/or gender involved, I find that combination HIGHLY unlikely.

      I think LKH meant that Anita summons the munin and the munin heals her, because that worked out in the last book. I think. Though at that point I was pretending all the sex was a very bad dream...

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  5. Water is anti lube. You'd think LKH would know that. You CAN have sex in water or in the shower and it isn't always terrible, but there's no way he can detect her natural wetness if they're both underwater. Jackhammering at a woman like that generally makes you a bad lover. Also what is with this womb breaching bullshit? I refuse to believe it's even possible.

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    1. It's been a regular theme since Incubus, I think. Anita likes to have her cervix punched.

      It's also interesting that Anita is ALWAYS on the recieving end. ALWAYS. Her special lover status doesn't come from being good at pleasing men. It comes from being capable of lying there and taking whatever they dish out, no matter how painful or dangerous it might be.

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