(I am standing in line at a book store. The customer in front of me is getting rung through. She’s about 45, and the cashier is maybe 19.)
Customer: “Have you read these?” *holds up 50 Shades Darker*
Cashier: “Oh… no.”
Customer: “Oh, you MUST! They’re amazing!”
Cashier: “So I hear.”
Customer: *puts the book to her chest* “Oh, they’re just amazing!”
Cashier: “Uh huh.”
(The customer proceeds to go on and on about how sexy and scandalous the books are. The cashier is doing her very best to ignore her and just ring her through.)
Customer: *after paying* “Oh, thank you very much! One more thing: do you know where I can buy some batteries?”
And yet we've still got old folks saying how perverse the young folks are...
"Oh, what a sick disgusting fetish! If I were your mother - ooh, borderline-misogynistic bondage erotica!"
The thing to remember is that practically every sort of fetish there is first manifested decades or centuries ago.
That aside, the 50/whatever books are pretty poorly written, but more importantly, they present an abusive relationship as an example of a normal, loving relationship, which in and of itself is pretty damn irresponsible. Someone (Scelly?) posted a link earlier to a review of them that was spot on.
Let's check off the "bad qualities of a book" list:
- Based off
Twilight fanfiction. I mean, fanfiction rewrites? Hell, I'm not stoppin' ya. But
Twilight? Really?
- The unfortunate implications abounding in the main relationship: dominant man, submissive woman, rich man, poor woman, older man (albeit by a few years), younger woman. Add the above comment too-it's not erotica about a healthy, reciprocal sexual relationship-it's erotica about an exploitative, loveless relationship.
- Written by monkeys with typewriters, it seems. Horny monkeys with typewriters.
I mean, hell, if this book is so popular, I'm gonna write "Bella and Edward's Screwathon", change the names around, and watch as I roll in the cash of uncharacteristically horny middle-aged women. Or make a
Fallout version, with Richard Grey (bonus points for being "the Master") and his kinky, one-sided relationship with a female Vault Dweller.
Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, Uhura Mazda, Vishnu, Amaterasu, Yivo, Illuvatar, Celestia, Atheismo, deity-whose-name-I-haven't-mentioned, please don't let my mother buy that book... she does a lot of crazy stuff.
Oh, right, the topic.
I've seen a lot of crazy shit happen at bookstores. Like running into friends of mine buying more manga (emphatically
not hentai) than I thought a real human could in a lifetime. Or my mother skimming row after row of mid-20th-century schlock, convinced she'll find something for me to read for an open-ended school assignment... and the cashiers are just as stupid. They're always trying to chat up the customers, even more than most cashiers.
EDIT: Dear god, SealyStar McDunce just realized the implications of the woman's request for batteries... does this mean I'm more innocent than most people, or just stupid?
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Topic: Amazingly Stupid Things You've Heard People Say (Read 1002207 times)