TRNs

I'll admit that I loves me a good love story, so I do read what I've always termed "trashy romance novels," wherein the man meets the woman or vice versa, they fall into like that seems headed toward love via a short stop at lust, but stumble along the way and only reunite after they both realize they cannot live another day without one another. I also prefer the lights to dim when they head to bed, with romantic suggestions about the lovemaking, rather than explicit graphic detail. I much prefer his throbbing manhood to the current steel-hard cock, and her damp panties to her dripping wet pussy, but I am at heart a romantic and can fill in my own details. I don't need to build my vocabulary with a long list of current slang for people's reproductive equipment, assorted body parts, and sexual activity. I turn the pages when a trashy romance novel becomes too "dirty" for my taste.

In the latest, and probably the last, book by TRN author Lora Leigh that I will purchase, the man v. woman struggle involves an overtly aggressive macho man who cannot lose himself to a mere woman: he has to hammer her into submission sexually before he can accept her as part of a relationship. I prefer male characters who share their weakness with women, rather than force the woman to submit to an iron-clad definition of manhood that results in a sexual assault. Too much testosterone turns me off, so I turn the pages, rather than read all about it in every salacious detail. Hence, from the beginning of the book, when the strong male character forced himself sexually upon the weaker woman, I was turned off by too much explicit detail far too soon into the book, but have enjoyed this author's stories in the past, so kept reading.

However, there is a new aspect to the romantic boy-meets-girl stories I've long enjoyed and I simply cannot ... go there. After turning past many, many pages of explicit sexual detail, my breaking point came with chapter 9, the anal intercourse chapter of the relationship -- and my first (hopefully last) experience with "that" in a TRN. Alluding to what goes on behind closed doors is okay: I can fill in the blanks if I feel the need to do so. However, the graphic detail totally turned me off -- and I didn't even read the chapter!! When I figured out where it was going, I knew that was a journey I would not share with the characters and stapled the pages together. Chapter 10 was the after-glow for him, but I'm not so sure it was the same for her. Her character felt physically and sexually dominated, while he was the cock of the walk, crowing to himself about that very special bonding and what it felt like/meant to him. To me, a relationship is an equality, not a dominant/subservient fight to the finish that always ends with both a winner, and a loser, on far more levels than just the sexual.

The cover notes exclaim "attraction so hot, it's shocking," but that has not meant offensive in my past experience. "Leigh's books can scorch the ink off the pages," touts another cover note, but there's heat and then there's too much fire. What's ironic is that the book over-view claims that "He is larger than life ... driven to distraction by the one woman who is too powerful to resist," because she comes across between the book covers as personally weak, vulnerable, and victimized by the male lead character! A woman is not strong because she allows herself to be conquered sexually; she's strong because she demands respect from her sexual partner, not her total submission to any and everything he demands.

I like the good old days, when the lights dimmed and the audience filled in the blank screen with their own mental meanderings, rather than having someone's darkest vision thrust upon them without warning! It brings to mind the Criminal Minds TV series, with a cast of FBI profilers who deal with the worst of the worst in an effort to stop a serial criminal before another victim loses life. Due to the graphic nature of the show, I can only watch it during the day, but from the people who bring viewers that experience comes the next step down: the FBI agents who, according to the PR hype, get into the mind of the serial killer and live the vicious murders as they occur, all the while working to stop the killing spree. Living those scripts and acting out the progression of events has to take a toll on the actors. I often wonder if becoming even for a short time another person's worst nightmare goes home with the actor and becomes a piece of who s/he is from that day forward. I don't need that level personally, and I cannot imagine why it needs to be portrayed on a TV series. We all can fill in the blanks, but most of us prefer not to go there/do that because it simply is not necessary.

I like my rose-colored glasses and cannot find one single redeeming quality to either the anal intercourse in explicit detail included in a romance novel or being inside the mind of a mass murderer as s/he commits the next criminal act shown on my TV screen.

Imagine that.