All passion spent?
The Guardian has an article about adding a "good sex" award to the "bad sex" award in literature. When I started reading, I had assumed that the author was going to rave about the quality of sexual writings in books today, but boy was I wrong. I think that's what she wanted to say, but then I get the end of the article and I think she's making that a point, whether she intended to or not, that a lot of sex in literature seems empty and hollow.
Sadly enough -- God, I'm going to sound like my mother now -- I think society is starting to treat sex as a commodity, similar to $50 DVD players and pre-packaged salads that stay fresh for two weeks. Sex has become about the act and not about the reasons, the motivations, the fears and dreams behind it. We've whitewashed all th personal stuff right out of there and all that's left is merely flesh slapping together like seals. Yawn. The first time is titillating, the second time is "eh", and by the gazillionith times (and you count how many times sex is introduced into your world in one 24-hour period), it's well, empty and hollow. A lot of writers (romance writers not included in this diatribe) don't touch on the emotional connections that sex can create. The younger generation talks about "hooking up". Everybody gets off and then goes home to their safe and respective beds. But when you do that, you lose the scariest parts of intimacy. The morning-after breath, the wet-spot dilemmas, the moment the tension is diffused with a stupid joke that nobody else in the world will ever think is funny, but that you'll remember forever. These little shared secrets are when our hearts and minds are most exposed, not when you're legs out. That's intimacy.
Great love affairs were not formed because of organ-blowing orgasms. They were fired and tempered through all the moments that follow after sex. So many people poo-poo romance as a genre, because "it's all about the sex". Well, pardon me, but no. Romance novels, above all, get it right. With everyone else, it's all about the sex. With romance, it's all about the heart.
Stepping down from my soapbox.
And now, for something completely different. We have the perfect trifecta of conspiracies, all coming to light this week. Coincidence? I think not. Around the world, tin-foiled crowned heads are bobbing in unison, saying, "we knew it, we knew it all along."
a) An internet game where you get to recreate the "assassination" of JKF. It's an X-Files episode gone wild.
b) Mr. Conspiracy Theory himself, Oliver Stone, has a new movie out this week about, yes, Alexander, who may, or may not have straddled two ponds on the way to conquering the world.
c) and yes, now we have the next great conspiracy, coming to bookstores near you in 2005, probably from Tom Clancy. The medical records of the "late" Yasir Arafat. Poisoned? Not poisoned? Dead? Not dead? You be the judge.
Happy Turkey Day!
Kathleen
Sadly enough -- God, I'm going to sound like my mother now -- I think society is starting to treat sex as a commodity, similar to $50 DVD players and pre-packaged salads that stay fresh for two weeks. Sex has become about the act and not about the reasons, the motivations, the fears and dreams behind it. We've whitewashed all th personal stuff right out of there and all that's left is merely flesh slapping together like seals. Yawn. The first time is titillating, the second time is "eh", and by the gazillionith times (and you count how many times sex is introduced into your world in one 24-hour period), it's well, empty and hollow. A lot of writers (romance writers not included in this diatribe) don't touch on the emotional connections that sex can create. The younger generation talks about "hooking up". Everybody gets off and then goes home to their safe and respective beds. But when you do that, you lose the scariest parts of intimacy. The morning-after breath, the wet-spot dilemmas, the moment the tension is diffused with a stupid joke that nobody else in the world will ever think is funny, but that you'll remember forever. These little shared secrets are when our hearts and minds are most exposed, not when you're legs out. That's intimacy.
Great love affairs were not formed because of organ-blowing orgasms. They were fired and tempered through all the moments that follow after sex. So many people poo-poo romance as a genre, because "it's all about the sex". Well, pardon me, but no. Romance novels, above all, get it right. With everyone else, it's all about the sex. With romance, it's all about the heart.
Stepping down from my soapbox.
And now, for something completely different. We have the perfect trifecta of conspiracies, all coming to light this week. Coincidence? I think not. Around the world, tin-foiled crowned heads are bobbing in unison, saying, "we knew it, we knew it all along."
a) An internet game where you get to recreate the "assassination" of JKF. It's an X-Files episode gone wild.
b) Mr. Conspiracy Theory himself, Oliver Stone, has a new movie out this week about, yes, Alexander, who may, or may not have straddled two ponds on the way to conquering the world.
c) and yes, now we have the next great conspiracy, coming to bookstores near you in 2005, probably from Tom Clancy. The medical records of the "late" Yasir Arafat. Poisoned? Not poisoned? Dead? Not dead? You be the judge.
Happy Turkey Day!
Kathleen
posted by Kathleen at 4:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home