January 8, 2020

How can the romance novel industry possibly face up to the problem of stereotypes?

I'm trying to read this Guardian article, "Romantic fiction awards cancelled after racism row prompts mass boycott/The 2019 Rita awards for romance writing have been pulled after more than 300 books were withdrawn from competition in protest."

And — in WaPo — "A romance writer called a novel racist. Now the industry is in chaos and its top awards have been cancelled."
As of Tuesday morning, more than 300 books had been withdrawn from the contest by authors who were critical of the RWA’s recent decision to discipline romance author Courtney Milan over her public criticism of passages in Kathryn Lynn Davis’s Somewhere Lies the Moon. Milan, a longtime critic of racism in the romance industry, had called Davis’s novel a “racist mess” for its depictions of Chinese women; Davis and her fellow romance novelist Suzan Tisdale responded by filing formal ethics complaints with the RWA, alleging Milan was a “bully” who had hurt their careers....
Maybe it's only a problem with awards. Stop giving awards, and let readers read what they like. But it might be a fundamental problem within romance novels. They're necessarily premised on stereotypes — can't be done without stereotypes. To see, condemn, and eschew stereotypes is to ruin the whole enterprise. It's an existential threat. I say might be because I am not a reader of this genre, and I don't really know what's in those pages or understand much of what psychological need they fulfill.

83 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Stereotypes are almost always reliably true.

That's how they became stereotypes. Through long term observation by lots of people.

Racial stereotypes are in fact one of the wonderful facets of human sexuality. Inter-racial sex is hot, and we all know it. It's hot because the races are stereotypically different.

Trying to prevent people from observing and acting upon stereotypes is just an attempt to make liars and cowards out of us all.

I'm at a loss as to what the purported benefit of the war against stereotypes is supposed to be.

tim in vermont said...

I know two women who read these things as obsessively as I read this blog. One black, and one white. I have always assumed that a lot of masturbating got done under the covers while reading them. I can’t get past the first page of one, likely because I don’t really want to know “what women want” but really, it’s eye glazing stuff to me. I am pretty sure that Freud could have just asked a writer of one of these things.

Expat(ish) said...

I am a subscriber to kindle unlimited books so I can read mindless junk fiction (SciFi, Lit RPG) in airports and super obscure history and biography in my spare time - all for $9.95 a month.

I occasionally form a search wrong and get dropped in a pond of romance novels, soft porn, bondage fantasies, etc. And there is a TON of it. I once scrolled across several hundred romance novel titles while drinking in an airport bar and giggling to myself. I probably looked like a serial killer.

But my macro point is: as long as Amazon doesn't care about "racist stereotypes" then I suspect that an endless stream of this stuff will be available, awards or no.

Surely the printed book market for Valley of The Dolls people must be waning at a terrific pace. My local B&N is only about 20% books now, the rest is Cafe, magazines, and junque.

-XC

Hagar said...

Good grief! They have an association?

tim in vermont said...

The purpose of co-opting awards is to funnel propaganda to whatever audience the awards serve. It’s a truism. An article of faith. That’s why nobody cares who wins the Nobel Prize in literature anymore, though the Bob Dylan gambit was at least novel. Even the Nobel Prize in physics recently partly went to a woman who expressed surprise that she had won, since what she was doing was basically engineering based on long known principles, not ground breaking stuff. Kind of like winning a prize for plowing a furrow, not for inventing the tractor.

MayBee said...

Are novelists generally terrible people? I am remember this fall's brouhaha where Jodi Picoult et al ganged up on a comment by a college student about YA fiction.

MayBee said...

I also saw on Twitter the other day that there is a complaint about BAFTA so white. So yes, I think Althouse might be on to something about getting rid of awards.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

Sci Fi fiction went through something like this a few years ago.

tim in vermont said...

Based on my sample set of fans of the genre, I can’t imagine that awards mean anything to them, and by withdrawing their books, the authors themselves back up my judgement.

gilbar said...

Shouting Thomas said...
Stereotypes are almost always reliably true.


so true!
one thing I've learnt from my romance literature, is that:
A) all Nurses are Lesbians
B) all lesbian nurses are gorgeous
C) all gorgeous lesbian nurses are (at least, secretly) bi-sexual

I don't know; maybe that's Three things? maybe i read a different type of romance literature? maybe ALL Stereotypes Aren't always reliably true (then, again... Maybe they ARE!)

tim in vermont said...

"Are novelists generally terrible people?”

The reason Faulkner claimed that he quit his job at the post office was that he got tired of being "at the beck and call of anyone with two cents.” Well, in the age of Twitter, everybody has “two cents” and we should just take Faulkner’s example.

brylun said...

"Get woke, go broke."

tim in vermont said...

Maybe we are more talking about archetypes than stereotypes.

My experience with lesbians though suggests that they like throwing a little sausage into the paella from time to time. The non political ones.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

Finally had a chance to look it up. It was the Sad Puppies affair during the Hugo Awards.

https://www.wired.com/2015/10/hugo-awards-controversy/

Peter said...

As much as stereotypes distort reality (which is always much messier) the reaction against them can be just as distorting. I've noticed how more and more film and TV historical dramas feature women who are suspiciously outspoken about the sins of the patriarchy and fearless in their blunt, defiant assertions of independence in all things. Who knew women in long bygone days were so much like 21st century woke millenials?

AllenS said...

Unless a book has a lot of pictures/illustrations, it's not worth reading. Fiction is an absolute waste of time.

Jamie said...

Yes, archetype, not stereotype. It's got to be. The only thing I've read remotely like the books in question is Fifty Shades (hilarious, from the moment my friends left it in my mailbox in a literal brown paper bag), and Lord, the tropes - a shortcut to the "hot" stuff, that's the only possible purpose they could serve.

(I guess having read only one "romance novel," I can't possibly speak with the confidence I started out with, can I? But it seems obvious.)

Ralph L said...

Haven't the bodice-rippers been skewered by PoundMeToo?

Shouting Thomas said...

In many movies nowadays, the brilliant computer nerd is a black guy sporting dreads.

I worked as a tech freelancer on hundreds of projects over a 45 year career.

I never met a black programmer. Not one. I did meet a lot of Indian programmers.

Stereotypes are pretty reliable.

Fernandinande said...

Speaking of stereotypes, I know a disbarred lady lawyer who ghost-writes romance novels. They're actually similar occupations.

Ralph L said...

dramas feature women who are suspiciously outspoken about the sins of the patriarchy and fearless in their blunt, defiant assertions of independence in all things

The women who aren't fearless at decking large men are complete basket cases at the first sign of trouble--or months afterwards.

traditionalguy said...

Archetypes? Hmmm.The book covers always used to show a St George able to fight the dragon. But no one knew St George's skin color was important. All really that mattered was that he had the body and the attitude needed to slay dragons.

Jamie said...

The salient tropes being "innocent girl who doesn't know her power, nor her passions" vs "disciplined man who loses his sh*t over her" (that's Fifty Shades), or "jaded woman who's been hurt too many times" vs "man who has overcome hardship and pain without losing his soul" (which seems to be every Hallmark movie, based on this Christmas at my in-laws'), or of course lion tamer vs lion, either gender in either role, which I suppose to be all the bodice-rippers.

I don't mean to denigrate the genre. Everybody knows the tropes because the tropes speak to us. I extrapolate from reading some writers' blogs that in this genre as in others, the good authors are workmanlike and competent and know they're not writing The Sun Also Rises.

It'll be the ones who hope they might one day write The Sun Also Rises (but won't) who get all bothered about their genre's "message."

traditionalguy said...

Ahem. The genre's problem is that the stories are sexist, not racist. And that is why they sell. Give me that old fashioned sexism.

Phil 314 said...

Hardin-bait but no Hardin.Hmmm

Fernandinande said...

Hardin-bait but no Hardin.Hmmm

He had to go to a carrier facility in Salt Lake City to pick up a package. They might not have blogs there.

tim in vermont said...

"The Sun Also Rises”

Ha! Read it carefully and it is remarkably well written humiliation porn.

tim in vermont said...

I kind of wish I had never read that book on Freudian analysis of literature. I liked that book better as a story about nothing, kind of like pre-Seinfeld Seinfeld.

Even the fucking sun rises, but not his goddamned dick!

Fernandinande said...

“The notion of the submissive Chinese woman is a racist stereotype which fuels higher rates of violence against Asian women,” [Milan, who is Chinese American] wrote.

"The results showed that Blacks were victimized the most, followed by Whites and Latinos, and Asians were victimized the least. Asians were the least likely to be victimized by IPV, even when controlling for sociodemographic variables. The odds of victimization for Blacks and Latinos were not significantly different from Whites."

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JAORE said...

Thank goodness stereotypes are being removed from romance novels....

Like those sexual stereotypes, begone!

jaydub said...

gilbar: "All nurses are lesbians."

My dad had a saying:

"There are only two sure things in this world; death and nurses.

tim in vermont said...

The big difference between The Sun Also Rises and Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe is that Lady Ashley doesn’t have the same nasty mouth as the Liz Taylor character, but she acts exactly the same, the relationship is exactly the same.

Eleanor said...

Romance novels are mindless entertainment much like video games. Neither has any redeeming social value beyond providing folks some distraction. Both are rife with archetypes and stereotypes, and so what? The only difference between the two is one appeals mostly to women and the other mostly to men, and neither appeal to some of us. Again, so what? It's all bubblegum for the brain.

iowan2 said...

The fiction I read is 100% devoid of race. All the charecters are whatever race I assign to them. I always choose the Human race.
Yes I know, how cliched. But race never played into a Dan Brown novel. This sounds like a dust up only academics could care about.

Fernandinande said...

Asians were victimized the least

And Chinese the least of the Asians.

William said...

I've never read a Harlequin type romance novel, but I did read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Those books are said to be the original romance novels. Some sick shit in those books. Heathcliff reads more like a potential serial killer than a D'Arcy. Iirc, he courts Catherine by hanging her pets. Rochester, the love interest in Jane Eyre, becomes increasingly maimed as the novel progresses. And you understand what the subtext of maimed is. Sick shit. And these books used to be routinely assigned to high school students

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Somebody had a headline like: progressives rush to see latest sitcom before they are forced to condemn it for its deeply disturbing stereotypes, and casual use of hurtful tropes and incendiary rhetoric. Have you seen "Young Frankenstein"? Two uptight women who turn out to be dreaming of being a bimbo for the right man; and one woman who's an unabashed bimbo. ("Thank you Doctor"). This has got to stop.

tim in vermont said...

"Hemingway investigates the themes of love and death, the revivifying power of nature, and the concept of masculinity.” - Wikipedia

Umm. No. It’s about a guy who is in love with a beautiful woman who loves him too, and cuckolds him, because... wait for it... it’s the only way she can show him her love. She knows he likes it. [OK, I added that part, not sure I can support it from the text] And he can’t fuck her himself. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe is clear about why she is cuckolding him. He likes it more than she does. Think of George W Bush as the Rock Hudson character and Nancy Pelosi as Liz Taylor for an updated version.

tim in vermont said...

"Young Frankenstein”

I can never decide if we should be charging these people therapist rates to watch their stuff or not. Mel Brooks? He plays with the stuff, he’s great. Adam Sandler? I feel like he should pay us to watch his movies.

tim in vermont said...

“Somebody somewhere might be having fun."

Xmas said...

It wasn't just Milan calling a book a racist mess. Milan dug up some book an author had published 20 years ago and used that to attack a newly formed editing and publishing house that picked up that author as an editor. This is after going after the publishing house for having a Trump supporter as an editor

Milan also never read the book she accused of being a racist mess, she just relied on excerpts dug up by people she was goading into attacking the publisher for the Trump supporter hiring.

https://madgeniusclub.com/2019/12/24/rwa-and-courtney-milan-pt-2/

rhhardin said...

Lileks says they're slow reads. It's page 165 before the guy unfurls his manhood.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's only a problem with awards. Stop giving awards, and let readers read what they like. But it might be a fundamental problem within romance novels."

The "fundamental problem" isn't in the fundamental character of award programs or romance novels. Or anything else.

The fundamental problem is in not telling stupid sanctimonious scolds to fuck right off.

Darrell said...

It's all about the SJW notion that you have to be a member of a particular race or culture (or victimology) to write about it. No exceptions for anyone other than a member of an accepted victim class. Courtney Milan (pen name of Heidi Bond) must have a reason for just leveling a general charge of racism.

William said...

I'm trying to get into The Expanse. It's scifi series on Netflix. It was my understanding from Star Trek that in the future space travel would be done by hot women in crotch high mini skirts who would cast admiring glances at the brave men who explored the cosmos. So far in this series, the women are in the meh to gritty range, and they wear heavy clothes with cargo pockets. Okay, mini skirts are gone, but there's no reason why women can't wear latex or yoga pants on space voyages. The outfits that they wear take all the romance out of space travel.....Scifi used to be the male equivalent of romance novels, but the feminists have taken over even these remote outposts of the galaxy.

rhhardin said...

It's page 165 before they get down to business because there are so many different surrounding things to have feelings about first.

Guys abstract from all of that and go right to it.

rhhardin said...

In romcoms the important event for women is the guy apologizing at the end.

I don't know if the Chinese do that or just bind their feet tighter.

tim in vermont said...

"The fundamental problem is in not telling stupid sanctimonious scolds to fuck right off.”

The secret is right out in the open in the movie Trumbo. You might not have liked the commie tool himself, but he knew that the scolds and prigs didn’t have any real power unless you gave it to them.

"Lileks says they're slow reads. It's page 165 before the guy unfurls his manhood.”

In real life, the guys who can actually “unfurl” their manhood will have texted a dick pick before the check arrives on the first date, because it works. But women like to maintain a certain belief about their innate goodness.

RNB said...

The fight isn't about eliminating stereotypes. It's about replacing one set of stereotypes with another set of stereotypes.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Now that’s a crisis.

Maillard Reactionary said...

The Guardian? You read The Guardian? What, the NYT, Whappo, and New York magazine don't publish enough left-wing tripe to satisfy your voracious appetite for mental abuse?

Fascinating in a grotesque sort of way, from a safe distance.

Known Unknown said...

What I want to know is how many of something do you need to have before you get a stereotype? Like, how many champagne-colored Cadillacs are driven by elderly people before it becomes a traditional stereotype? 10? 500? 50,000?

Lucien said...

Monty Python was going to do a sketch about the disciplinary committee of the Romance Writers Association, but nixed the idea as “Too silly”.

tim in vermont said...

"Those books are said to be the original romance novels.”

Let me put in my vote for The Taming of the Shrew.

Unknown said...

"Like the hamburger she had earlier that night, her body was mounted with relish";

Her petticoats dropped to the ground, rustling like a cockroach in a sugar bowl.

Erri De Luca
She pushed on my hips, an order that thrust me in. I entered her. Not only my prick, but the whole of me entered her, into her guts, into her darkness, eyes wide open, seeing nothing. My whole body had gone inside her. I went in with her thrusts and stayed still. While I got used to the quiet and the pulsing of my blood in my ears and nose, she pushed me out a little, then in again. She did it again and again, holding me with force and moving me to the rhythm of the surf. She wiggled her breasts beneath my hands and intensified the pushing. I went in up to my groin and came out almost entirely. My body was her gearstick.

A Doubter’s Almanac by Ethan Canin
The act itself was fervent. Like a brisk tennis game or a summer track meet, something performed in daylight between competitors. The cheap mattress bounced. She liked to do it more than once, and he was usually able to comply. Bourbon was his gasoline. Between sessions, he poured it at the counter while she lay panting on the sheets. Sweat burnished her body. The lean neck. The surprisingly full breasts. He would down another glass and return.

"As Hilda’s buttermilk bosoms squished up against his granite abs, Torolf almost had a dick aneurysm." And that's not even the best part. It's from a book called "Rough and Ready"

Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg: Standing in the middle of the bedroom, we take off each other’s clothes. He has a light, fumbling brutality, which several times makes me think that this time it’ll cost me my sanity. In our dawning, mutual intimacy, I induce him to open the little slit in the head of his penis so I can put my clitoris inside and fuck him.

Fritz said...

William said...

I'm trying to get into The Expanse. It's scifi series on Netflix. It was my understanding from Star Trek that in the future space travel would be done by hot women in crotch high mini skirts who would cast admiring glances at the brave men who explored the cosmos. So far in this series, the women are in the meh to gritty range, and they wear heavy clothes with cargo pockets. Okay, mini skirts are gone, but there's no reason why women can't wear latex or yoga pants on space voyages. The outfits that they wear take all the romance out of space travel.....Scifi used to be the male equivalent of romance novels, but the feminists have taken over even these remote outposts of the galaxy.


The Martian space marine Bobby has the potential, but rarely gets to display it given the bulky space garments.

Maillard Reactionary said...

Unknown quoted: "Torolf almost had a dick aneurysm."

Good thing I'd finished my coffee by the time I read that one!

tim in vermont said...

by hot women in crotch high mini skirts

And side boob! Under boob! Boobs are always better when completed by the imagination.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"...called Davis’s novel a “racist mess” for its depictions of Chinese women."

Was the depiction slanted in some way?

mccullough said...

A Chinaman with a big dick just isn’t believable

tcrosse said...

In 1956 Jean Shepherd started the literary hoax romance novel I Libertine. It was so effective that eventually an author was hired to write it as a satiric bodice-ripper. It is still available you-know-where.

hombre said...

So Asians can actually be victims of racism? Outside of discriminatory admissions policies at Ivy League universities, that is.

RigelDog said...

Lileks says they're slow reads. It's page 165 before the guy unfurls his manhood.>>>

There are many many sub-genres but I can tell you that the attitude towards quick sex has changed in the average romance novel. The mutual understanding that the two parties have fallen in love is still on page 165, but there's a new weird kick where the people have fairly quick sex, like on page 40. And it's always that they start to make out and before you know it, the guy is going downtown. On the kitchen table or in the barn or in the back room of her cozy bookshop. And usually that's where the physical contact stops, with no intercourse and no relief for the dude--yet. The tension still exists though because the two people will have ridiculous mis-understandings and/or trust issues that prevent them from having PIV sex until page 165, and then from committing to each other until the end. I don't read my romance novels anymore but I read a lot back in the day.

Wince said...

What's the difference between a romance novel and a spank book?

The pages stuck together.

Yancey Ward said...

Milan should now do Pornhub.

gerry said...

"Romantic fiction awards cancelled after racism row prompts mass boycott/The 2019 Rita awards for romance writing have been pulled after more than 300 books were withdrawn from competition in protest."

CNN claimed in its arguments regarding the Nick Sandman settlement: “Courts treat statements characterizing people as “racist” as nonactionable opinion because they cannot be proved true or false… Sandmann cannot as a matter of law base a defamation claim on this statement as it offers an expression of opinion so subjective as to be unprovable.”

CNN's attorneys believe that charges of racism cannot be proven! A charge of racism is an opinion so subjective it cannot be considered as defamatory! Charges of racism are bogus when money gets involved!

Francisco D said...

Stereotyping is only a problem when the stereotype doesn't fit your political agenda.

mikee said...

Page 165 before the manhood unfurls in romance novels?
I remember when one could reliably turn to about page 120 of Cosmo for some serious T&A every month. It seems there may be a programmed consistency in publishing's use of sex to sell pieces of dead trees.

gilbar said...

mini skirts are gone, but there's no reason why women can't wear latex or yoga pants on space voyages. The outfits that they wear take all the romance out of space travel..

This is a Sin Against Nature!
The ENTIRE POINT of going where No Man Has Gone Before; is to be able to Come Home.
IF the women are going to be ugly dykes, we might as well stay on earth

Unknown said...

William, interesting take on The Expanse. I hadn't thought of it that way. Can I be retroactively disappointed?

Annie C, be careful with reporting about the Sad Puppies affair. Most of it is completely wrong (ala Gamer Gate). One of the "misogynistic white racist Morman men" is an Hispanic woman; another's wife is not white. (Does Portuguese still count as Hispanic? I occasionally miss the SJW memos.)

As for the subject at hand, again the reporting is garbage. The novel in question is not set in present-day; it's historical. Needless to say (I wish!), being true to the time period is going to introduce some things that SJWs will find unacceptable.

If I read a romance novel - and it has been known to happen (Ruby Lionsdrake has some fun space opera romances) - I try to stick to the "normal" ones. For example, who knew that pregnant gay male werewolves was a thing? I was certainly surprised - and walled the book. If anyone's wondering, it was "pregnant male" that was a step too far for me. I had actually picked it for the "gay werewolves" part.

Bruce Hayden said...

This does remind e of the Sad Puppies debacle in Sci-Fi. A bunch of leftist authors no one had ever heard of seized control over te awards, and started awarding the awards to each other. Much better known, more conservative, authors fought back by utilizing their readers. None of this should surprise anyone. The left is always taking over institutions, then ruining them. That is what they do. They just can’t write decent science fiction, because the utopias they design and write about are typically not very plausible. Imagine being excited about moving society from where we are now, to, say, Venezuela. Or Castro’s Cuba. Etc. Audiences much prefer starting in, say, present day China, and moving society to somewhere less brutal and more self actualizing.

The problem in romance novels is probably somewhat similar. Women may want, in their deepest secrets, to be taken by a big black buck. But they don’t want to fall in love with him, bring him home, and try to convince their parents that she has caught a good one. Because their parents are unlikely to agree. I have a good friend who went through this, and was ultimately widowed 6-8 years ago after over 30 years of marriage. Last year, her mother privately told me that her husband (this girl’s father) really regretted that his daughter hadn’t ended up with me instead (this year is the 50 year anniversary of the summer we dated). This parental disappointment really was hard on this good friend of mine. Part of this whole thing is that women are supposed to marry up not down. In any case, crossing these lines that progressives so desperately want to wish away, doesn’t sell books.

Another example of Get Woke, Go Broke.

Why is the black/white color line still to this day, the hardest to cross? I would suggest because the Democrats, starting with LBJ, have made so many blacks in this country dependent on the government, which has effectively destroyed black families as a unifying force in the Black community. When 3/4 of black children are born out of wedlock, that means that any American black man that a white woman might bring home to meet her parents is more likely than not from a dysfunctional single parent household, and lacked good male role models growing up. Pretending that this isn’t the case, as Progressives are wont to do, doesn’t make the situation any better. Legislating speech, as these progressive romance authors are trying to do, and therefore trying to legislate thought, doesn’t work.

William said...

I think Gone With The Wind qualifies as a romance novel. What's the current take on Scarlet O'Hara? She's got some feminist virtues. She wants to run her own business. She and Melanie kill a Yankee rapist. Her father,the patriarch, loses his marbles and she becomes, in effect, the patriarch of her family. Even her crush on Ashley can be defended on feminist grounds. He, not Rhett, is the one who allows her the most range of motion. The only thing that prevents her from becoming a full fledged Elizabeth Bennett is her racism. It's hard to be a feminist heroine when you're pro slavery......They should ease of the copyright restrictions on racist novels. Let them be re-written. I'd like to see a sequel where Scarlet, after her break up with Rhett, goes back to Tara. I originally thought that maybe a romance with one of the field hands would help her to overcome her racist views, but here's a better idea. Because of all the hard work and lack of food on the plantation, Mamie starts to lose weight. It turns out that when Mamie slims down, she starts to look like Haley Berry. The sparks between Mamie and Scarlet aren't completely maternal. Finally their love can no longer be denied. Mamie decides she no longer wants to tighten the stays on Scarlet's corset but rather decides to rip it off. The two go on to have a happy pairing. Together they work to subvert the racist and sexist expectations of their society, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Marc in Eugene said...

Hardin-bait but no Hardin. Hmm.

He had to go to a carrier facility in Salt Lake City to pick up a package. They might not have blogs there.


This is why I skim even the Althouse posts etc that I have no particular interest in.

Caligula said...

" Stop giving awards, and let readers read what they like."

Industry awards ceremonies exist to promote the industry. It is not necessary that they necessarily select the best, only that they promote an interest in what the industry sells.

And yes, if you don't want this to happen to your industry's awards ceremony then tell the critics to STFU: as with any show, don't participate/don't watch if you don't like it. The problem is that SJW's are never satisfied with merely avoiding what they dislike, they need to shut it down so no one else can participate or see it either. It's as if the very thought that someone might be saying something disagreeable (even if you need never hear or see it yourself) is just so intolerable that it must not be stopped, BAMN.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

was "Lolita" a romance novel?

Bill Clinton poses with Epstein’s ‘pimp’ Ghislaine Maxwell and a sex slave on board private jet the ‘Lolita Express’

https://www.the-sun.com/news/us-news/224545/bill-clinton-jeffery-epsteins-ghislaine-maxwell-lolita-express/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=sunustwitter&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1578496843

gerry said...

It's probably my age, William, but I thought the character Chrisjen Avasarala of "The Expanse" was hot.

And as for Bobbie, I wonder how she would have fared in hand-to-hand combat with Amos?

gerry said...

And, William. your re-write of "Gone With the Wind" is very good. You had me at "Because of all the hard work and lack of food on the plantation, Mamie starts to lose weight."

Lewis Wetzel said...

Althouse wrote: "Maybe it's only a problem with awards."
Yes it is. And it is a problem with awards across the entertainment field, because a few people can control the process. You can't make people watch or not watch television shows or films, or read or not read books, but you can control the awards process, and the few people who do control the awards process are a tight knit group. They all have about the same education level and work in the same industry. They (the SJW's)took over the sci-fi awards system a few years ago. Getting or not getting an award has real world consequences because mass buyers, like libraries and schools, have a preference for buying award-winning books.

fleg9bo said...

"Smilla’s Sense of Snow: In our dawning, mutual intimacy, I induce him to open the little slit in the head of his penis so I can put my clitoris inside and fuck him."

They left that part out of the movie.

Nichevo said...


Hardin-bait but no Hardin. Hmm.

He had to go to a carrier facility in Salt Lake City to pick up a package. They might not have blogs there.

In Utah? From his place in Ohio?

Hope his bike chain is fresh.

William said...

George Lucas told Carrie Fisher that women in outer space did not wear bras. I think George Lucas knows a little more about the proper attire in outer space than any other Hollywood director. There are those who have their complaints about his later trilogy, but at least Natalie Portman didn't wear cargo pants. Cargo pants on women in space is like shorts on men in Regency romances......Felicity Jones was pretty good in Rogue One. She was about the best of all the Star Wars princesses after Carrie Fisher. She could do the kick ass scenes, but she was also appealing and had a sense of fun. I could travel the galaxy with her. I'm not seeing anyone in The Expanse who would be much fun on an extended space flight....They say it gets better. I'll stick with it. I'm only half way through the first season. The special effects are credible and, occasionally, imaginative. I like the way they decapitated that guy in the vacuum chamber. One of the more interesting decapitations I've seen in recent times.

Unknown said...

Here's the deal...what's better than a 16 yr old girl when you are 18? A 60 yr old woman(or 68) when you're 70. Man, these girls want to be poked. They say that! They want to be poked. Whatever. Jeez, let me have a nap. Not complaining. Still pondering the '62 SC decision on religious freedom. Am I the only one who sees boys and girls playing on a playground at 60+. Afterall, all this time...we are just boys and girls playing on a playground.