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lliiraCN: Anita Blake book
So... sex scene. I guess. I swear a lot in this one.
“The ardeur came and the clothes went. The custom-made leather knife sheath ripped away with all the rest.” (85) I complained earlier about LKH spending way too long describing a guy's cuffs, and I understand not writing in detail about people removing clothing in a sex scene, but this is both too much and too little. Too little: come on, tell us something about getting the clothes off. As it's described, I'm picturing a tornado that shreds clothing. Too much: custom-made leather knife sheath, thanks for that, I'm sure it was necessary. It does show how totally useless that machete is in Anita's life, though, so there's that.
Auggie's dick is already hard. There has been no foreplay at all. How does this work, anyway? He's a vampire – do they have the same kind of bloodflow as humans?
“He kissed delicately, though I knew the ardeur rode him and what he wanted to do was anything but delicate.” Because sex and lust in Anita's world always mean hump as hard as you possibly can. No one wants to make slow, gentle, passionate love; no one wants to tease; no one wants to give and receive as much pleasure as they can; it's all jackhammering.
Anita realizes that she gets turned on by seeing Jean-Claude and Auggie kiss. While telling us this, she brings up a “very smart friend” who told Anita she obviously did want multiple men in her bed because she kept saying she didn't. There seems to be an unnamed “smart friend” in a lot of the Anita books. I believe this is someone in LKH's life. Also, “I've been told that it's how a lot of men feel about seeing two women kiss. Why should I be any different?” (86) Not why shouldn't some women feel the same about seeing men kiss, but why should Anita be any different from men.
I laughed out loud here: “I came to the long, hard curve of Auggie's body. Not straight, but truly curved, so that the grace of that hard flesh curled in against his own body”. His body is curled against his body. Okay then. Also, his body is covered with foreskin and only his body's “head” is naked. LKH uses “wild” twice in this paragraph, by the way.
This chapter is horribly boring, and I believe it's because there is no emotion. I'm not talking about love or even people caring about each other on any level. I'm talking about emotion, period. The closest Anita comes to telling us what she's feeling (if anything) is when she says two men kissing “just flat out did it for me.”
Anita realizes they can “roll” Auggie, “make him ours in a way that I couldn't even explain in words” (87). It's called mind-rape, Anita. You're welcome. Requiem and Asher, who are still hanging out in the room, have a little conversation with JC (not Anita, just JC) about how Requiem and Asher can't hold the ardeur in this room forever, and somehow this leads to JC asking Auggie if he consents to... something. JC and Anita feeding on him I guess. Anita is going down on Auggie during the beginning of this conversation, by the way, and JC has to tell her to stop. She clearly does not want to, and not because she's enjoying it so much, but because she wants to manipulate Auggie as much as possible. Blech.
Auggie says yes about twelve times, and even though none of them are really capable of consent right now, JC and Anita take this as a big okey-dokey. And then, “I ended up on the floor with Augustine on top of me. All that curved hardness going in and out of my body, so that I screamed for him” (87). Screamed. I think I'll try actually screaming the next time I have sex, and see how far back my husband jumps and if the cops get called. Also, Auggie's cock – oh, I'm sorry, body – seems to have teleported itself into Anita's... something.
Worse than the silly screaming, however, is how goddamn FRUSTRATING this is. We don't get to see these people removing each other's clothes; we don't get to see foreplay at all; and we don't even get to see penetration! Nope, all we get is Anita suddenly being jackhammered, and how she got there is supposedly immaterial.
I have a hypothesis as to why LKH avoids describing these things when not only are they easily sexy, but they'd up her wordcount handily. It's that she is seriously uncomfortable with any emotion directly related to sex. When in the middle of being jackhammered, one's emotions might be more confined to mere fact of the jackhammering, rather than the richer, more layered emotions having to deal with foreplay and the beginning of sex. This is not to say there isn't emotion during jackhammering, because there is, and LKH avoids describing that too. It's just easier to talk about a thrusting cock than about the intricacies of other parts of sex. And by the way, it is only the thrusting cock (“curved hardness”) that gets talked about. It's in Anita's “body” somewhere, and I guess we're supposed to assume it's in her cunt, but for all we know, Auggie's cock is in Anita's ass or mouth or bellybutton. We don't even get told how this curved dick feels to Anita beyond the fact that she seems to like it.
Instead of having feelings, even physical ones, Anita is pondering how JC fucking a man who is fucking Anita is new. “We had never put anyone in the middle of us when we both fed the ardeur” (88). Could you have thought of a more awkward way to write that sentence, LKH? Anita now thinks about how Jean-Claude is feeling. She has no feelings herself, but she can tell that JC is relieved to be able to stick his dick in a dude.
Then JC uses Anita's natural lubrication (“wetness of my body”) to finger Auggie in the ass (88). Better hope JC went strictly vagina → ass, and not vagina → ass → vagina, or you're looking at a nasty infection, Anita. Unless vampires don't poop. Then, using only lubrication from Anita's “body” (tearducts?), JC sticks his dick in Auggie's ass. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Use lube. Also words. And consent.
Auggie starts to make some noise while JC fucks him. He apparently was silent before. Certainly people have different levels of vocalization during sex, and different levels depending on what they're doing and etc. But I have the strong impression that LKH thinks only the penetratee makes noise during sex, ever. She truly does seem to have gotten all of her knowledge of sex from mainstream porn.
Anita thinks, “I knew that orgasm was coming and that this one couldn't afford to be a surprise” (89). I have no idea why, and I also have no idea how she has gotten almost to orgasm here. She has not described her sensations leading her to this point. Again: mainstream porn.
Anita comes (“screaming”, of course) and so do the two men (89). Wow, they're quick. Thrust-thrust-thrust-OH GOD YES. Anyway, as they all have orgasms, Anita and JC feed off everyone metaphysically bound to Auggie. Orgasms are forced onto all of them. One nearly gets into an accident on a highway. This was not part of the deal, but that's the norm in Anita Blake books. Auggie, JC, and Anita might be seen to have consented if you turn your head sideways and squint, and that doesn't flat out do it for LKH.
Since Anita and JC have committed mass metaphysical rape, they are filled with lots of metaphysical power to share around with all their mindslaves. All their people are happy, yay! And that's what matters, not that they've just used sex to force something sexual onto a whole bunch of non-consenting people, thereby sucking power from those people.
LKH is a bad person and should feel bad.
LKH is also a terrible writer and should feel terrible. That was a sex scene? Seriously?! It was nothing but a very brief jackhammering followed by some screaming and metaphysical rape. Obviously LKH's issues around sex are so overpowering, they drown out even her hack writer proclivities. She could have gotten so many words out of foreplay and penetration and feelings both physical and emotional.
I just realized that Anita promised to use condoms early in the book, and there is nary a condom to be seen in this chapter.
So... sex scene. I guess. I swear a lot in this one.
“The ardeur came and the clothes went. The custom-made leather knife sheath ripped away with all the rest.” (85) I complained earlier about LKH spending way too long describing a guy's cuffs, and I understand not writing in detail about people removing clothing in a sex scene, but this is both too much and too little. Too little: come on, tell us something about getting the clothes off. As it's described, I'm picturing a tornado that shreds clothing. Too much: custom-made leather knife sheath, thanks for that, I'm sure it was necessary. It does show how totally useless that machete is in Anita's life, though, so there's that.
Auggie's dick is already hard. There has been no foreplay at all. How does this work, anyway? He's a vampire – do they have the same kind of bloodflow as humans?
“He kissed delicately, though I knew the ardeur rode him and what he wanted to do was anything but delicate.” Because sex and lust in Anita's world always mean hump as hard as you possibly can. No one wants to make slow, gentle, passionate love; no one wants to tease; no one wants to give and receive as much pleasure as they can; it's all jackhammering.
Anita realizes that she gets turned on by seeing Jean-Claude and Auggie kiss. While telling us this, she brings up a “very smart friend” who told Anita she obviously did want multiple men in her bed because she kept saying she didn't. There seems to be an unnamed “smart friend” in a lot of the Anita books. I believe this is someone in LKH's life. Also, “I've been told that it's how a lot of men feel about seeing two women kiss. Why should I be any different?” (86) Not why shouldn't some women feel the same about seeing men kiss, but why should Anita be any different from men.
I laughed out loud here: “I came to the long, hard curve of Auggie's body. Not straight, but truly curved, so that the grace of that hard flesh curled in against his own body”. His body is curled against his body. Okay then. Also, his body is covered with foreskin and only his body's “head” is naked. LKH uses “wild” twice in this paragraph, by the way.
This chapter is horribly boring, and I believe it's because there is no emotion. I'm not talking about love or even people caring about each other on any level. I'm talking about emotion, period. The closest Anita comes to telling us what she's feeling (if anything) is when she says two men kissing “just flat out did it for me.”
Anita realizes they can “roll” Auggie, “make him ours in a way that I couldn't even explain in words” (87). It's called mind-rape, Anita. You're welcome. Requiem and Asher, who are still hanging out in the room, have a little conversation with JC (not Anita, just JC) about how Requiem and Asher can't hold the ardeur in this room forever, and somehow this leads to JC asking Auggie if he consents to... something. JC and Anita feeding on him I guess. Anita is going down on Auggie during the beginning of this conversation, by the way, and JC has to tell her to stop. She clearly does not want to, and not because she's enjoying it so much, but because she wants to manipulate Auggie as much as possible. Blech.
Auggie says yes about twelve times, and even though none of them are really capable of consent right now, JC and Anita take this as a big okey-dokey. And then, “I ended up on the floor with Augustine on top of me. All that curved hardness going in and out of my body, so that I screamed for him” (87). Screamed. I think I'll try actually screaming the next time I have sex, and see how far back my husband jumps and if the cops get called. Also, Auggie's cock – oh, I'm sorry, body – seems to have teleported itself into Anita's... something.
Worse than the silly screaming, however, is how goddamn FRUSTRATING this is. We don't get to see these people removing each other's clothes; we don't get to see foreplay at all; and we don't even get to see penetration! Nope, all we get is Anita suddenly being jackhammered, and how she got there is supposedly immaterial.
I have a hypothesis as to why LKH avoids describing these things when not only are they easily sexy, but they'd up her wordcount handily. It's that she is seriously uncomfortable with any emotion directly related to sex. When in the middle of being jackhammered, one's emotions might be more confined to mere fact of the jackhammering, rather than the richer, more layered emotions having to deal with foreplay and the beginning of sex. This is not to say there isn't emotion during jackhammering, because there is, and LKH avoids describing that too. It's just easier to talk about a thrusting cock than about the intricacies of other parts of sex. And by the way, it is only the thrusting cock (“curved hardness”) that gets talked about. It's in Anita's “body” somewhere, and I guess we're supposed to assume it's in her cunt, but for all we know, Auggie's cock is in Anita's ass or mouth or bellybutton. We don't even get told how this curved dick feels to Anita beyond the fact that she seems to like it.
Instead of having feelings, even physical ones, Anita is pondering how JC fucking a man who is fucking Anita is new. “We had never put anyone in the middle of us when we both fed the ardeur” (88). Could you have thought of a more awkward way to write that sentence, LKH? Anita now thinks about how Jean-Claude is feeling. She has no feelings herself, but she can tell that JC is relieved to be able to stick his dick in a dude.
Then JC uses Anita's natural lubrication (“wetness of my body”) to finger Auggie in the ass (88). Better hope JC went strictly vagina → ass, and not vagina → ass → vagina, or you're looking at a nasty infection, Anita. Unless vampires don't poop. Then, using only lubrication from Anita's “body” (tearducts?), JC sticks his dick in Auggie's ass. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Use lube. Also words. And consent.
Auggie starts to make some noise while JC fucks him. He apparently was silent before. Certainly people have different levels of vocalization during sex, and different levels depending on what they're doing and etc. But I have the strong impression that LKH thinks only the penetratee makes noise during sex, ever. She truly does seem to have gotten all of her knowledge of sex from mainstream porn.
Anita thinks, “I knew that orgasm was coming and that this one couldn't afford to be a surprise” (89). I have no idea why, and I also have no idea how she has gotten almost to orgasm here. She has not described her sensations leading her to this point. Again: mainstream porn.
Anita comes (“screaming”, of course) and so do the two men (89). Wow, they're quick. Thrust-thrust-thrust-OH GOD YES. Anyway, as they all have orgasms, Anita and JC feed off everyone metaphysically bound to Auggie. Orgasms are forced onto all of them. One nearly gets into an accident on a highway. This was not part of the deal, but that's the norm in Anita Blake books. Auggie, JC, and Anita might be seen to have consented if you turn your head sideways and squint, and that doesn't flat out do it for LKH.
Since Anita and JC have committed mass metaphysical rape, they are filled with lots of metaphysical power to share around with all their mindslaves. All their people are happy, yay! And that's what matters, not that they've just used sex to force something sexual onto a whole bunch of non-consenting people, thereby sucking power from those people.
LKH is a bad person and should feel bad.
LKH is also a terrible writer and should feel terrible. That was a sex scene? Seriously?! It was nothing but a very brief jackhammering followed by some screaming and metaphysical rape. Obviously LKH's issues around sex are so overpowering, they drown out even her hack writer proclivities. She could have gotten so many words out of foreplay and penetration and feelings both physical and emotional.
I just realized that Anita promised to use condoms early in the book, and there is nary a condom to be seen in this chapter.
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-13 03:13 am (UTC)I think you might have something about her not wanting to equate emotions with sex. She’s pretty sex-negative when you get right down to it, she probably doesn’t actually have any real good feelings about it that aren’t tinted with shame or the like, and she knows that’s not sexy to write about, so she just…puts nothing.
Wow, fingered in the ass? That is the kinkiest fucking thing to ever happen in an AB book. It’s definitely more shocking to me than, say, Nathaniel being flogged or Anita being gagged, because usually the only penetration going on is a cock in Anita’s cunt or mouth. Assholes don’t exist in the sex scenes. Heck, even when JC was boning Asher in Bullet, it was phrased in the most discreet way possible.
Also, lolll, AB vampires poop? COME ON!
no subject
Date: 2013-10-13 11:38 am (UTC)The word "ass" is of course not deployed. Nor is rear, butt, backside, bum, fanny, gluteus maximus, derriere, hindquarters, posterior, or tush. For all I know, JC is actually fucking Auggie in the ear. Also, Anita thinks about how Auggie must not have been fucked in the ass for a long time (in LKH-speak) because he prefers sex with "girls". If this is true, a little fingering -- and no lube! -- is likely not going to get him ready for anal penetration by a cock. But just because one doesn't fuck people with dicks, or fuck people at all, that doesn't mean one hasn't had something up one's ass in a while. LKH does not appear to know that sex toys exist.
Yeah, vampires probably don't poop. Forget their shit not stinking; they are so much better than everyone else that they don't even have shit. I HATE VAMPIRES.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 05:48 pm (UTC)You know, the first time I read this, I just thought, "Huh, I would normally expect that conversation to actually show up in at least one previous book, with the 'very smart friend' being a named character we'd met." Thinking about it some more, though...
Anita apparently officially has at least one friend who tells her things she doesn't realize about herself. But this isn't something LKH will show us; her on-page interactions with her friends nowadays are all about her getting the better of them. Apparently Anita having any interaction with another woman that isn't about how much better Anita is than that woman in every way is something LKH can't stand to do now.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-19 06:23 pm (UTC)It's something I don't understand at all, simply as a writer. There are things I can't write because they're hard or I can't do them justice or that I fail at in some way because I'm just not good at writing them or that veer off into a wall, and that's normal for most writers. But this seemingly physical inability to stop doing something that can be identified objectively is weird to me. It's sort of like her overuse of the word "spill". Even in a first draft, how does LKH manage it? She's weirdly impressive to me because of these things.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-24 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-25 07:37 pm (UTC)It doesn't have to be over-the-counter lube if it's in a story, for me; olive oil or a similar substance is fine, especially in a traditional ye olde fantasy world. In Anita's world, there is no reason these people would not carry around packets of lube. Silicone lube, considering Anita's predilection for shower and bath sex. The aversion to using lube that some people have makes my head hurt. I think they think sex is somehow wrong and icky and therefore if you prepare that makes you wrong and icky. Idek.