C.M. Stone's Blog, page 4

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter eight

No trigger warning this time around. Just a general Content Warning for discussion of rape, torture, etc. FUN STUFF.

This is it folks. This is a chapter I do remember. As I recall (remember, I was like ten when I read this), Bettina does not get whipped at all. Tristan comes out and saves her before any harm is done. He starts to be humanized and the first sparks of romance form. That’s still creepy as hell, since he’s kidnapped her, sexually assaulted her, and then threatened to make it extra painful when he assaults her a second time, all within the course of a few hours. But if you’re willing to get rape fantasy in your romance, it kinda works?

In a horrifying way, I mean.

ANYWAY. Let’s see how well my childhood memory holds up to the real thing.

For those joining us, we’re re-reading A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey, a historical romance novel first published in 1978. When last we left Bettina, she was about to be whipped to death for “killing” Tristan.

Chapter eight begins with Tristan waking up from his head trauma and stumbling out of his cabin and…

“Hold!”

Jules was stopped barely in time, and he turned to see Tristan coming toward him, holding one hand to his aching head.

“Mother of God! Have you gone mad, Jules,” Tristan asked when he reached them, an angry scowl on his face at the sight of Bettina’s bared back.

“God’s truth, Tristan, I have never been more pleased to see you! Davey, that fool of fools, said you were dead—that the wench killed you!”

Tristan grinned now, but only slightly, for his head was throbbing painfully. “Didn’t it occur to you, old friend, to check for yourself?”

THAT’S WHAT I WAS SAYING. Doesn’t it frighten you that your crew are this astoundingly stupid and quick to action, Tristan? I’d be a little worried about leaving these people unsupervised, especially with cannons lying around. They might decide to declare war on Jamaica because a bird shit on the deck.

So when Jules had cracked the whip near her without actually striking her yet, Bettina had fainted and she’s still unconscious. She’s (physically) unharmed so far. Tristan has her untied and is going to take her back to his cabin, which Jules thinks is fairly dangerous, considering she tried to kill him. Tristan thinks it’ll be okay, though. Not because he’s going to be kind to her and try to make things right, though.

“Thanks to you, old friend, I know that she has a deathly fear of the whip. Didn’t she faint before you laid one stroke?”

“Aye.”

“Well, that’s just the kind of information I need to put her where I want her.”

I’ve read noncon erotica that’s more romantic than that. What the actual fuck? He’s going to continue lying and manipulating her, using threats to force her to be submissive to him, so he can continue to rape her. I guess we’re supposed to be impressed because he wouldn’t really have her whipped and wouldn’t really have prisoners tortured to death, but since he’s using these threats to mentally terrorize a woman he’s keeping as his sex slave, that doesn’t exactly improve matters.

Rape fantasies are common and I understand them. Horror erotica is its own genre and while it’s not my thing, I know why mingling fear and arousal is hot. But even if I can’t remember all the details of this book, I know one thing: it ends with Tristan and Bettina in love, living happily ever after. And that’s what I don’t get. An emotionally damaged hero that might be a bit of a jerk, but the heroine’s love heals him? Not a healthy blueprint for a relationship, but a damn fine fantasy and one that I share. (Seriously, I read Loki fanfic, FFS. I get the appeal of the tortured asshole.) (Er. No pun intended.)

I don’t understand the fantasy here, though. Whatever people enjoy is what they enjoy and so long as it’s not hurting anyone, more power to them. I just don’t get it. Was this the best women in the ’70s could fantasize about for romantic happily ever afters? An attractive man who lusts for you so much he can’t help raping you, and maybe he mentally abuses you and constrains your freedom, but he’ll never actually hit you?

Aaand I’ve depressed myself.

Back to the book. Tristan takes Bettina to his cabin and lays her down on his bed, with Jules and Madeleine following him in. And then he has this…er…tender moment:

Would she awaken still frightened, or with renewed fury at finding him alive? He hoped for the fury. He wouldn’t care to see this beauty cower before any man, not even himself. He would enjoy trying to break her in what little time he would have her, but somehow he knew that Bettina Verlaine could not be broken, not as long as there was life in her. She could be made to submit to him, but no one could break her will.

How romantic. While Madeleine tends Tristan’s head injury, he asks her a bit about Bettina’s backstory. Since we got all of this in big chunks of exposition at the beginning of the story, it’s not particularly interesting to read it again. This could have been helped a lot by trimming down the start of the book and letting us learn these details from dialogue like this. Tristan thinks it’s hilarious that Bettina was schooled in a convent, because he thinks she’s such a “hell cat.” Madeleine tries to defend her.

“I have never seen her so angry as she was today. Bettina is kind and gentle by nature, just like her mama. When she finally gave up trying to win the love of her papa, she was quite happy with life. Just her smile can make others feel as she does.”

“I have yet to see this smile or this kind and gentle nature,” Tristan remarked.

“You alone would know why, Capitaine. You have—have—”

“Dishonored her? Yes, so I’ve been told.”

YOU. RAPED. HER. Why is there any shock over her being angry? Why is it some kind of character flaw on her part that she wants vengeance against this man? Out of curiosity to see if the fact that it’s rape gets swept under the rug or not later in the book, I searched for every instance of “rape”, “raped,” “rapes”, and “raping” in the text. Do you know how many times those words are used? Sixty-two. SIXTY-TWO TIMES IN A 388 PAGE BOOK. That’s one variation of “rape” every 6.25 pages.

Romance novels need to have conflict, both internal and external, to keep the lovers from their happy ending until the very end. I don’t think “he raped her and for some silly reason she’s angry at him” makes a particularly satisfying conflict, unless it’s resolved with an ice pick through Tristan’s eye. I have a theory about what Lindsey was going for here, which I’ll get into later. Whether it’s what she was trying to do or not, it’s an interpretation that might help me finish this book without sobbing.

Because, seriously? This is depressing as hell to me. This isn’t just some cheesy old romance novel published before I was born. This is the first one I ever read. This is a book I loved. This book set me on the path to eventually become a writer. Literally, I am who I am today because of this book. So it feels a bit like being betrayed by a loved one–maybe even a parent–to return to it and see this stuff.

As the chapter ends, Tristan is left alone with the unconscious Bettina and watches her, musing about how awesome it is to rape her and how weird it is that she’s angry about it:

Tristan poured more of the wine into his tankard, leaned back in the chair, and fixed his gaze on Bettina. It would not take very long to reach Saint Martin, probably less than a week if the winds were favorable. That wouldn’t give him very much time to enjoy this beauty. In all his twenty-six years, he had never met a woman as beautiful as Bettina Verlaine, nor one with such a maddening temper.

I think I preferred the version of this chapter that I’d confabulated in my memory. We’ll see how chapter nine goes tomorrow.

Link Roundup

Jamaican Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) volunteers, 1943.

I’m heading out of town tomorrow morning to visit family and go to my brother’s college graduation. Exciting! My recaps of A Pirate’s Love should continue through the visit, though I’m a little iffy about next Wednesday since I’ll be on my way back then. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to write the recap for that one ahead of time and have it scheduled.

Here’s a bunch of stuff I found interesting the past couple of weeks that I didn’t share yet.

Fantasy’s Othering Fetish, Part One:

In one reply [George RR Martin] began with what appeared to be a history lesson: “Westeros around 300 AC is nowhere near as diverse as 21st century America, of course….” In another he seemed to give a geography lesson: “Well, Westeros is the fantasy analogue of the British Isles in its world, so it is a long long way from the Asia analogue. There weren’t a lot of Asians in Yorkish England either.”

Of course I’ve been hearing these same excuses since I was a kid. There are no black people in fantasy lands of ladies, horse lords and knights–because there were no black people there. Only there are two really convenient replies. (1) Well, there were no dragons, hobbits or elves either. You made that sh*t up. That’s what fantasy is you know–sh*t we make up. So if you can toss in a talking dragon, you can toss in PoC. Easy peasy. And (2), what has become an increasingly stronger reply, “you don’t know history or geography as well as you think you do.” Turns out, none of these Euro-spaces in our reality were ever racially monolithic. The fantastic site People of Color in European Art History has been destroying this hallowed myth one painting and statue at a time. Oh, and George, that African noblewoman found in Roman-era York might just beg to differ on just who was and was not in that space.

Sparta Reconsidered: Spartan and Athenian Marriage:

Because Sparta was a small society (at the peak of its power, under Leonidas I, there were just 8,000 male citizens of all ages), by the time youths reached adolescence they had seen all their prospective marriage partners engaged in a variety of activities and dressed in everything from what passed for formal dress in Sparta to nakedness. It is important to stress that they hadn’t just seen them. No Spartan law or custom suggested that women should be silent, while many foreign accounts decried Spartan women’s outspokenness. Boys and youths of the agoge were expected to be still and respectful in the presence of their elders, and girls were, too – but not with each other! No one who has raised or worked with teenagers can truly believe that Spartan youths and maidens played, hunted, swam, rode, sang, and danced side by side from age 7 onwards without talking to – and flirting with! – one another. The bigger question is rather how the Spartan school authorities and parents kept the entire system from getting out of control.

We Have Always Fought:

When I sat down with one of my senior professors in Durban, South Africa to talk about my Master’s thesis, he asked me why I wanted to write about women resistance fighters.

“Because women made up twenty percent of the ANC’s militant wing!” I gushed. “Twenty percent! When I found that out I couldn’t believe it. And you know – women have never been part of fighting forces –”

He interrupted me. “Women have always fought,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Women have always fought,” he said. “Shaka Zulu had an all-female force of fighters. Women have been part of every resistance movement. Women dressed as men and went to war, went to sea, and participated actively in combat for as long as there have been people.”

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter seven

Trigger Warning for threats of torture, death and rape, jerkfaces laughing over how hilarious rape is.

Before I begin the recap, a couple of notes. I asked my mother if this level of blatant sexual violence was common for romance novels written in the ’70s and she said it was not, but that other women she knew found it very romantic. Obviously, some people still enjoy the book.

I know I enjoyed it, reading it thirteen or so years after it had been published. I’m still trying to figure out why that was, so I’ll come back to this later.

One defense that has come up for what Tristan does is “that’s just how things were back then”, meaning that rape was acceptable in the seventeenth century and so we should give the book a pass for that. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for me. There are two reasons:

Rape wasn’t okay, not even then. Read this awesome story about a Byzantine woman killing a Norseman who tried to rape her. All of his buddies rallied around her, gave her the possessions of her attacker in compensation, and then threw his body out into the wilderness to rot without a proper burial. Rape is bad. Even Vikings knew that. Yes, it was probably more common, but it wasn’t okay.
Lindsey was born in the twentieth century and chose to write a story with a rapist as the hero after clearly demonstrating an understanding in the narrative that rape is wrong. She also chose to have her heroine be nineteen, when most readers at the time erroneously thought noblewomen were married off at an extremely young age. Just as she chose to make Bettina be an adult, she could have also chosen to not write about a rapist as a romantic hero. Making the hero a rapist was an active, creative choice. Johanna Lindsey has gone on to write far better books than this, thankfully, but this book by itself isn’t absolved by her being so very good later on.

But maybe things will get better, somehow. Maybe Tristan redeems himself, somehow. Let’s continue reading and find out.

In the last chapter, Bettina was raped by Tristan, who suffered premature ejaculation.

Chapter seven begins with Tristan talking about his as-yet-unexplained quest for vengeance and laughing about how awesome raping chicks is with his first mate Jules.

“No. I would consider keeping the wench for myself, but she might distract me, and I cannot rest until I find Bastida and put an end to his miserable life!” Tristan replied heatedly.

“I know what eats at you, Tristan, but let’s not think of it now. There is time and enough to find Bastida.”

“You’re right, old friend. There are much more pleasant things to think of now.”

Jules grinned mischievously. “I thought you liked your women willing.”

Did you think I was joking or exaggerating? No. They’re literally cracking up over how hilarious rape is. While this is going on, Tristan notices Madeleine going into his cabin and realizes that Bettina will now know that he was lying about having prisoners. Jules wants to know why Tristan would have lied and…

“Why did you tell the girl we had prisoners when we have never taken any before? Why didn’t you just threaten the servant’s life? That would surely have done the trick.”

“I did not want the girl to think me monstrous enough to kill old women,” Tristan answered irritably.

You didn’t want her to think you’re so monstrous as to kill an old woman. Instead, you told her you’d let other people torture and kill prisoners and then you raped her. Because you want her to think well of you, I guess? I can’t hope to wrap my mind around Tristan’s thought process here. It’s simultaneously terrifying and jaw-droppingly stupid.

In another display of idiocy, after this Tristan goes into his cabin alone with her. She’s standing there with her hands hidden in the folds of her skirts, almost certainly hiding a weapon. He turns his back on her immediately, giving her an opening to attack. She attempts to stab him with the dagger she found. Because he left a woman he’d just raped alone with weapons. Because he’s that amazingly dumb.

He stared at her in disbelief as he twisted her wrist until she dropped the weapon. Tristan hadn’t believed she would actually try to kill him. Threaten him, or fend him off, yes. But to raise the blade and try to spill his blood, no.

Mother of God! Did she have no care for her own life? Did she think that she could kill him and that his crew would do nothing about it? Perhaps she didn’t care what happened to her. If that was so, this woman was more dangerous than he thought. If she could put her hatred for him above her own life, then—but wasn’t that the way he felt about Bastida? He would have to take precautions with this little flaxen-haired beauty.

Really, dude? You didn’t think the woman you just kidnapped and raped would want to kill you? And, yes, it’s not a plan on her part that’ll lead to a happy ending, but since Tristan’s already proven himself a liar, she doesn’t have any reason to believe she and Madeleine are really going to be delivered safely anywhere. I’m firmly Team Bettina on this one. Stab him.

She tells him she wants him dead by her own hand, for lying to her and raping her and all that romantic stuff. Tristan laughs, because this book wants to break my soul. He asks what difference it would have made if he hadn’t lied to her and she points out that she could have fought, sparing herself the indignity of having to submit to her attacker. He’s unimpressed.

“Yes, of that I am sure. So where is the harm? I saved you from hurt, for who knows what I might have done in the heat of passion to still your struggling. I have never been faced with the situation before, so I can’t say for sure, but I might have beaten you or—killed you,” he added, just to test her reaction.

“But you would not have been unharmed yourself, monsieur,” she spat at him.

“Really, Bettina?” He laughed deeply now. Never having been faced with a woman’s anger, he began to find it amusing. “How would you have done that, when you can’t even escape my grip now?”

Bettina stomps on his foot and frees herself from him. Her options are limited, since they’re on a ship, so for the moment she puts the long table in his cabin between the two of them to buy herself more time. She wants to kill Tristan or at least disable him, then see if she can get a weapon to force the crew to take her and Madeleine to shore. It’s not the smartest plan, but again: she’s been kidnapped by pirates, has been threatened and raped and told she’ll be raped again, has been lied to, and has zero reason to believe she’s getting out of this alive. Anything she does at this point is a desperate bid for survival and she’s doing a hell of a lot better than most real people could manage under these circumstances.

Because Tristan is awful, he threatens her yet again:

“You little she-devil!” he growled. “I will do more than come near you, vixen. I will take you again—now! And this time you can fight all you want, but don’t be surprised if I give you the same.”

So now he’s telling her he’s going to rape her again, with physical violence this time instead of just threats. Bettina’s response is to throw things at him until she cracks him upside the head and he collapses like the sack of shit he is.

She flees, but is caught by the crew before she can get any farther with her plan. They look in his cabin and see him knocked unconscious and, being as woefully stupid as their captain, assume he’s dead. Jules says he’s going to kill her and makes sure to throw in some misogyny while he’s at it:

“I want you to know, bitch, that you have killed the only man I could call my friend. And for this you will die the worst of deaths, by my hands and mine alone!” He shoved her forward, and Bettina fell into the arms of two crewmen. “Tie her to the mainmast and stand by with water. This bitch will feel the full weight of the cat—until she is dead!” Jules stormed. His dark-brown eyes showed no mercy.

The chapter ends with her tied up, her dress torn to expose her back, awaiting the lash.

I’ll be back with chapter eight tomorrow. Will Tristan wake up from his head injury with a better personality? I hope so!

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter six

TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE, THREATS OF TORTURE, AND RAMPANT MIND-GAMES

Welcome to yet another exciting recap of A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey, a historical romance novel first published in 1978.

When last we left Bettina, she was cowering in horror as the pirates took her ship.

Hey, do you know what today is? It’s the first of May.



NSFW language in that video. Bless you, Jonathan Coulton. I just hope this chapter doesn’t ruin the beauty of the day for me.

Chapter six opens with the pirates talking about “the wench” and searching the ship while Bettina overhears them and hides. Madeleine decides that their best hope for survival is to tell the pirate captain to ransom them to Bettina’s betrothed Comte de Lambert. Madeleine also warns Bettina to stay quiet and to absolutely not let the pirates know she can speak English. The fact that Bettina speaks English is obviously going to be important to the plot later on. I wish it would stop being hammered home. Whatever ends up happening is going to be robbed of all drama because of this.

The door they’re hiding behind is busted down and Bettina screams at the sight of the non-sexy pirates.

Once Bettina and Madeleine are dragged over to the pirate ship, we finally get to meet Tristan. And, boy howdy, is he a gentleman.

This man Tristan stood directly behind Bettina, and she turned around to face him. What she saw made her gasp, for this man was even taller than the other one. He was truly a giant! He was only a few inches from her, and Bettina had to look up past his broad chest to see his face. His eyes were a startling pale blue, and a long, thin scar started in the middle of his right cheek and cut a path into the dark gold of his beard.

Bettina stared for long moments at the thin scar, and the man’s muscles tightened and his eyes grew icy.

He grabbed hold of her arm, making her wince, and started to walk her across the deck.

Madeleine tells him that Bettina can’t speak English, but he doesn’t care and his crew crack jokes about how he doesn’t need her to speak for what he wants. Shockingly, this makes Tristan (he hasn’t been given a name yet, but obviously this is Tristan) stop. He yells at his crew to shut up and get to work, then apologizes to Bettina for hurting her when he grabbed her. This doesn’t count as a “pet the dog” moment so much as a “stop stepping on the dog’s throat” moment, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Madeleine tries to lay the ransom plan down on Tristan, but he doesn’t appear to be impressed and has his first mate Jules drag her off to lock her up somewhere, leaving Bettina alone with him. Bettina’s terrified and considers leaping over the railing of the ship to drown herself as a preferable end over whatever the captain is going to do to her, but Tristan takes her off to his cabin instead.

“My men seem to think you are a beauty, Bettina,” he remarked casually. “But frankly I don’t see how they could tell with that black powder covering your face.”

Bettina instinctively tried to rub away the black. But when her hand came away clean, she realized he had tricked her.

“So you understand English after all. I thought as much. Why did your servant lie?”

I actually laughed out loud at that. I’d been sure the English thing would be a long-running ruse through the rest of the book.

They talk a bit and she again tries to convince him to ransom her, but he’s not interested.

“Then what will you do with me, monsieur, throw me into the sea—after you have raped me?” she asked sarcastically.

“Exactly.”

She stared at him, aghast. She had expected a denial, but without one, what could she say?

“Is—is that your intention?” she asked fearfully.

He stared down at his tankard of wine for a moment, as if contemplating her question. Then he looked at her, an amused expression on his face.

“Take off your clothes.”

I don’t know what to do with this. I…just…no. This smirking sociopath is going to rape her and happily labels what he’s going to do as rape, in a book where rape has been discussed and understood to be a very bad thing, and…he’s the hero? Again, there’s no wiggle room. No grey area. There’s no “oh, he just doesn’t understand how awful rape is” or “it’s not really rape-rape”. Dude is calling it motherfucking rape. I’m horrified, yes, but also completely confused. I can see this being somebody’s rape fantasy, but I can’t see it being a romantic fantasy. What the hell is going on?

She refuses and argues with him. He says he will return her to her betrothed, but not without bedding her first. And now he says he doesn’t like rape, so she should just consent and make it all good.

“I repeat, Bettina, I am going to make love to you. Nothing will save you from that. But I don’t want to have to force you. I don’t like rape.”

“But it is rape, monsieur, for I don’t want to make love!”

“Call it what you like, as long as you don’t fight me.”

You can’t tell, but I just had to walk away for an hour to rage-eat fudge brownie ice cream and play video games. Now let’s try this again. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe Tristan is an asshole who’s messing with her head, but isn’t actually going to do anything to her.

Tristan tells her that he has some men from the Windsong as prisoners and his crew just straight up love torture. In exchange for their lives, he offers her a bargain.

“Your submission for the lives of those men. You I will have whether you fight me or not. I will not be denied you. But I will spare the lives of the prisoners and set them free in the next port on one condition—that you don’t fight me.” He paused and smiled. “You have lost already, Bettina, for I will have you no matter what you decide. But the prisoners have everything to gain. They will live and not be harmed if you agree. I want your answer now.”

Bettina doesn’t want anyone killed or tortured–remember, this is the woman who threw up over the whipping of the man who attacked her–so she agrees to do whatever Tristan wants. He leaves to tell his crew to not assault the prisoners and tells her to get naked while he’s gone. When he comes back, he finally tells her his name, then suggests she have some wine because he figures taking her virginity is going to hurt.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

She chugs down some wine and he starts kissing her. There’s the classic “oh, hey, this is kind of arousing” response on her part, usually meant to make the rape in these sorts of books Magically Not Rape. Except she doesn’t just melt into his arms. She begs him one more time to let her go:

“Yes. Oh, please, Tristan, please don’t do this to me. I ask you once more, please spare me this shame!” she pleaded uselessly.

“No, little one, it is too late for that.”

“Then be done with it!” she said sharply.

And so to punish her for being so awful–begging him not to rape her, geez!–he…well. He rapes her. It’s painful, but at least it only appears to last about thirty seconds.

“I’m sorry, Bettina. I didn’t mean to be so quick, but you have a sharp tongue. Next time, it will be better for you.”

He leaves her, she stews in hatred–as she absolutely should–and then Madeleine is sent in to see her. It turns out there aren’t any prisoners at all, other than the two of them. Now Bettina has moved past hatred into wanting to murder Tristan. I am so with you, girl. But Madeleine begs her to be sensible, because taking revenge will only get them killed. Nothing can stop Bettina’s rage now, though.

This makes me want to go back in time and hug my ten year old self and then burn this book.

Well. I’ll be back with chapter seven on Monday.

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter five

Welcome to yet another exciting recap of A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey, a historical romance novel first published in 1978.

When last we left Bettina, she had just been given the definition of rape.

Chapter five now has the Windsong in warmer waters. After a storm, Bettina wants to go up on deck in the morning sun to get her hair to dry faster. Madeleine protests this and there’s some concern about the creepy crew again, but the captain allows it. The power of Bettina’s amazing blonde hotness dooms them all:

“Ladies, you must return to your cabin quickly.” Bettina jumped as the captain came up behind her. “If that seadog of a lookout had been doing his job, instead of watching you, then he would have seen the vessel in time. As it is, they are coming straight for us.”

“Is there anything to be alarmed about, Capitaine?” Bettina asked worriedly, a frown puckering her brow.

“That ship is not flying her colors. She may be a pirate vessel.”

CHAPTER FIVE IN A BOOK WITH PIRATE IN THE TITLE AND WE FINALLY GET PIRATES

And Lindsey pulls no punches on making this pirate attack really horrifying:

A thunderous blast echoed in the small cabin, and then they heard the cracking of timber and a loud crash. They knew that one of the Windsong masts had fallen.

Soon they felt a jarring, as of one ship coming upagainst the other. Shouting could be heard, and gunfire, and the sickening sound of screams—men screaming as they met their deaths. Madeleine sank to her knees to pray, and Bettina quickly joined her. After a short while, the gunfire ceased, and they heard boisterous laughter. Perhaps the crew of the Windsong had won. Was it too much to hope for, that they were safe now? But then they heard English words among the laughter. The crew of the Windsong was entirely French, and spoke only French. The pirates had won!

And then…wait. What? That’s the end of the chapter?



I…guess I’ll see you all tomorrow with chapter six?

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter four

Welcome to yet another exciting recap of A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey, a historical romance novel first published in 1978.

When last we left Bettina, she was on the Windsong and heading for the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean.

Chapter four makes a jump to two weeks into her journey. Bettina’s burned out on the lack of proper bathing (I really can’t blame her) and getting a touch of cabin fever (no pun intended). Every time she goes up on deck, however, the captain flips out because he’s convinced that the crew are going to mutiny and rape her and steal her gold. This is portrayed like it’s just a natural consequence of how hot Bettina is, but that’s really not how reality works. If this is something Captain Jacques Marivaux needs to worry about, he got himself a really, really bad crew.

Troublingly, nobody will tell Bettina about why they’re actually concerned:

“It’s not for you to concern yourself with,ma cherie,” Madeleine said. “You just do as the capitaine instructs.”

“But you do know the reason, don’t you, Maddy?” Bettina pressed her.

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Then why do you hesitate to tell me? I am not a child anymore.”

Madeleine shook her head. “You are innocent of life, and a child in many ways. You know nothing of men, and the less you know, the better.”

“You cannot protect me forever, Maddy. I will have a husband soon. Must I be completely ignorant?”

“No—no, I suppose you are right. But do not expect this old woman to tell you everything you want to know.”

“Very well, just tell me why I cannot have the freedom of the ship,” Bettina replied.

“Because you must not tempt the crew with your beauty, my pet. Men have strong desires that make them want to make love to a woman, especially one as lovely as you.”

No, Madeleine. You’re not worried that these men will want to “make love” to Bettina. You’re worried they’ll assault her. She probably doesn’t know what rape is, but she does know what violence is. The absurd victim blaming going on there is probably both historically accurate to the seventeenth century and accurate to societal attitude’s in the ’70s, but it’s still gross and makes me sad. As a human being, Bettina deserves better than this.

As an illustration of how wrong this view of rape is (men have STRONG DESIRES and a really beautiful woman will just MAKE THEM RAPE), here’s a picture of a dog with a hot dog on his nose:

 

Look at that dog’s eyes. He wants that fucking hot dog like you have never wanted anything in your life. This is an apex predator, being taunted by a bit of delicious processed meat that can’t run away. And why isn’t he eating it? Because he hasn’t been told he can yet. He’s waiting for consent from his human. This is an animal that licks his own butt and he knows he can’t have that hot dog without permission, even if it’s right there on his damn face.

So unless your argument is that men are actually dumber than dogs–holy misandry, Batman–anybody creeping on Bettina is an untrustworthy asshole, not a victim of “strong desires.” They never should have been hired if they can’t be trusted with the passengers.

A week after that conversation, one of the crew members bursts into Bettina’s cabin and grabs her. She screams, he’s caught, and the captain’s really charming:

Captain Marivaux appeared beside Bettina, scowling. “It is most unfortunate that this has happened, mademoiselle. Comte de Lambert will be furious when he learns that you were nearly raped.”

The crew member is whipped in a horrible, bloody detail while Bettina is beside herself. She begs them to stop, not understanding what’s going on. It’s incredibly dark. After the whipping, blood splattering, and Bettina’s puking are all done, she goes to Madeleine to ask her for an explanation of it all

“But the man did nothing, and now he is marred for life because of me!”

“He disobeyed the capitaine’s orders, and for that he was whipped. The crew was warned not to go near you, Bettina, but this man did not heed the warning. He would have made love to you if the capitaine had not heard your scream,” Madeleine said quietly.

“Then why didn’t the capitaine say that, instead of saying he nearly raped me?”

“Did you want that man to touch you?”

“Of course not,” Bettina replied.

“Well, he would not have taken your wishes into consideration. He would have forced himself on you against your will, and that is rape.”

A romance novel that has a love-at-first-rape plot actually accurately defines rape? There’s no wiggle room there at all. If somebody’s touching you without your consent, it’s assault. Boom. Right there in the fourth chapter, though I’m still gagging at the “make love” phrasing. It also leads to this introspection from Bettina hammering Madeleine’s definition home:

Bettina leaned back on her own cot, her mind in a whirl. So that’s what rape was—making love to women who did not want to be made love to. How awful!

I kind of want to close the book right now, cheer Johanna Lindsey on for taking on rape culture in the 1970s when people in the 21st century still struggle with what she’s laid out so simply in black and white here. But…this is not the end of the book. Alas. We haven’t even met Tristan yet.

Come back for another chapter tomorrow!

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter three

Welcome to yet another exciting recap of A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey, a historical romance novel first published in 1978.

When last we left Bettina, she was laughing herself to sleep about how her mom was trying to turn her into a shameless Mary Sue.

Chapter three opens on the day Bettina is to set sail. Apparently her parents are going to accompany her part of the way–I feel like tighter editing would have cut the first two chapters, at least, and started the story at the point when they’re about to actually say goodbye–and the servants are all super excited about the wedding they won’t be going to and slacking off in their glee, which Jossel complains about. I dunno, I’m kind of wondering if the servants don’t give a shit about the wedding and are just happy the family is leaving so they can chill out.

The large coach that Andre had purchased especially for the journey to Saint-Malo was impressive indeed. It was drawn by six coal-black horses and was large enough to carry all the trunks on top, including the small chest that contained Bettina’s dowry in gold.

I wonder if a pirate is going to get that gold. What do you guys think?

There’s some fashion porn describing Bettina’s clothes and her trousseau. Which sounds super special and I can remember being a kid and wishing that I had a trousseau, but it turns out that it’s just a fancy word for a hope chest.

In Bettina’s case, a really fancy hope chest.

Oh, incidentally:

Her wedding dress had taken the longest time to make, of course, but it was a beautiful garment, a masterpiece,and all who had worked on it were proud of the results.

The dress was creamy white satin, the same color as Bettina’s hair, covered with handmade lace, except for the tight-fitting sleeves. Flowing lace sleeves fellaway from the shimmering satin ones. It was a beautiful gown, caught tight about the waist, with a square neckline and flowing skirt, the lace divided in the front of the skirt to reveal the satin beneath. Bettina would wear white satin slippers with the dress, and the white pearls Andre had given her on her nineteenth birthday. Her veil, yards of white lace, had been worn by her mother on her own wedding day.

The story about white wedding dresses only being a thing after Queen Victoria isn’t true at all. Because white was a difficult color to achieve, wealthy brides would wear it to show off how much money they had, rather than to symbolize virginity. Metallic dresses were also very common and white and silver were frequently paired. The ubiquity of cultured pearls today makes us forget just how rare and costly natural pearls are. Here’s a natural pearl necklace that recently sold for $1.6 million. Bettina’s string of pearls is a dowry in and of itself. Her mother’s veil, too, would be worth a fortune, being made of yards of white handmade lace.

So this paragraph isn’t just telling us how pretty her dress is. It’s showing how very wealthy and powerful her family is, which would be the point of it at her wedding, too.

The narrative makes a sudden shift into Madeleine’s viewpoint and then we get a new character, Jacques Marivaux, captain of the Windsong, introduced by a couple paragraphs from his perspective. It’s a little confusing and I can see why this isn’t really done nowadays. I definitely find sticking to one character’s viewpoint at a time much easier. Jacques is already complaining in his head about how crappy it is that he has to sail some stupid girl around and how she has a whole bunch of stuff with her and ugh. I don’t know if this is an indication that this is an untrustworthy captain or if it’s just random misogyny for flavor.

Every sailor gets a boner looking at Bettina, so the captain sends her to stay in his cabin for safety. And then boggles that she’s being sent with so much gold, since she’s so gorgeous any man with sense would marry her without a dowry at all.

Aaaand…that’s it. Pretty short chapter, just getting us from point A to point B for the most part. Now that she’s at sea I can dread where things might go in the next chapter. I’ll have the recap of chapter four up on Wednesday.

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter two

Welcome to yet another exciting recap of A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey, a historical romance novel first published in 1978.

When last we left Bettina, she was betrothed to a stranger on the other side of the Atlantic.

Chapter two starts with Bettina’s mother Jossel coming to speak to her privately later the same day. This happens, which is awesome:

“Is there something you wish to tell me, Mama?” Bettina ventured.

“Yes, yes, there is,” Jossel answered in heavily accented English.

Papa and Mama both liked to speak English, since many of Papa’s associates were Englishmen. And since Bettina had also learned that crude language at the convent, Papa insisted that English be used at all times.

Usually when some weird detail like that is shoved in hamfistedly, it pops up again as important. I kind of hope it isn’t at all important and is just a nonsensically weird thing Andre the Asshole did. The guy calls his wife “madame” after all and introduces his daughter to people she already sees as family. I can just see him declaring one day, “Madame and Mademoiselle Verlaine, my wife and daughter, I have decided that even in private conversations the two of you have behind closed doors without me present, you must speak English because I often do business with Englishmen.”

ANYWAY. What Jossel wants to tell her daughter is that when she got married she was a good and dutiful wife, but Andre was a big jerkface because she wasn’t getting pregnant. So she went and boned some Irish sailor named Ryan “with fiery red hair and dancing green eyes” and then got pregnant. Gee, it doesn’t sound like Jossel is the one with the fertility problem there. So she wants Bettina to know that not only is Andre not her biological father, but that it’s totes cool if Bettina decides to have a lover on the side because she doesn’t like her arranged marriage.

Y’know, it might not be a popular opinion, but I’ve got to agree and this makes me really like Jossel. If she doesn’t get a choice in marriage, then she doesn’t really have an obligation to be faithful either. Jossel can’t protect her daughter from what’s happening, but she can let her know that she deserves love, wherever and however she can find it. Good for her.

They go on discussing how Bettina doesn’t look much like her biological father and this is the point when I realize we haven’t really gotten a description of what she looks like yet. It may have been better when I was just imagining a generic blonde:

“I was deathly afraid at the time that you might be born with Ryan’s flaming red hair. But luckily you have my white-blond hair and my papa’s changeable eyes. Of course, those eyes of yours can be a hindrance to you. You cannot hide your feelings with those clear, dark eyes. As they are now, dark blue, I can tell that you are happy.”

“You are teasing me!”

“No, ma cherie. Even now your eyes are turning dark green.” Jossel laughed. “I know it must be unsettling to learn that you can’t hide your feelings, but your eyes always show the truth.”

It’s strangely reassuring to know that the Mary Sue kaleidoscope eyes trope goes all the way back into the seventies, at least. My worry here–based off of the “it’s so rape-y” reviews I saw on Amazon–is that Bettina’s mood ring eyes are going to be used to justify abusing her. If her eyes are dark blue and happy well, gosh, she can’t really mean it when she says no.

(Yes, she can. She can. She can.)

More description of how Bettina looks as she checks herself out in a mirror after her mother leaves:

She supposed she was pretty in a way, but she didn’t think she was as beautiful as her mother fondly said. She had a nose that curved slightly at the tip, an oval face, but she felt that her forehead was not high enough. Her pale skin was smooth, without a blemish, but her thick flaxen hair was straight, not fashionably curly, and she hated it.

She stood out oddly among the girls at school, who teased her for her different appearance. At five feet, six inches, she towered over the petite French girls. And instead of having full breasts and soft, round curves, she was very slim. Her breasts were nicely shaped and not too small, so she didn’t find much fault there. It was her hips that she cursed. They were slim—too slim, in fact—and her long legs didn’t help matters. Her tiny waist added a slight curve to her hips, but it annoyed her that she had to pad her skirts in that area.

She’s a tall, skinny blonde with straight hair. Damn, does it suck to be her, right? I do kind of wonder if this was already a cliche when this book was published, or if this is one of the early examples of “oh woe is me, I’m so ugly by looking exactly like modern societal ideals.” Being too thin could absolutely be a drawback in historical settings, but Bettina has people constantly gushing over how beautiful she is. Also: NOBODY’S DAMN HIPS WERE SO BIG THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO PAD THEM. Have you seen the shit people wore in history?

Hint: Those aren’t her real hips.

Bettina talks to herself a bit about her upcoming marriage and laughs at how silly her mama is, because nobody really has eyes that change color. Then she goes to sleep and the chapter ends.

This chapter probably blew my mind as a kid, but now I can see cliches that I’d been ignorant about before. Again, it’s entirely possible that none of these were cliches when this book was published and these were actually innovations on Lindsey’s part, but if they were they aren’t exactly great innovations. Conventionally attractive women lamenting over their looks not being good enough was tired the first time an author wrote about it. There are things that could be done with it, but not if everybody is constantly telling her how gorgeous she is.

I’m really digging Mama Jossel’s free love attitude, though. That’s an interesting, innovative heroine. Still enjoying the book so far. Still no sign of Tristan.

Tomorrow I’ll have chapter three up.

Ruining My Childhood: A Pirate’s Love, chapter one

I was a voracious reader as a kid and started reading books for adults at an inappropriately young age. A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey came out before I was born, so I know I didn’t start reading it that early, but the copy that came into my hands was definitely not something I should’ve been reading.

Since it was the first romance novel I read and I still love the genre, it’s not surprising that I enjoyed my first taste. Tristan was the first alpha male asshole (or alpha-hole) that had me sighing in longing. My enduring fascination with pirates and the Caribbean was probably sparked in part by this book. Johanna Lindsey is a talented, prolific writer, so surely this was a great book, right?

…weeeeeeeell. Maybe not. Out of 177 reviews on Amazon, 80 of them are one star. Most of the bad reviews talk about how rape-y the book is and how loathsome Tristan is as a hero.

Trying to remember how I viewed it at the time, I remember thinking that Tristan was an asshole and being horrified by some of the stuff he did, but I don’t remember it ruining my enjoyment of the book. I just wished he’d be nice to Bettina so they could live happily ever after. Ugh.

So in the interest of destroying my childhood memories, I’m rereading the book. Come, join in my disillusionment! First of all, the description used for the newest edition of the book doesn’t match the original back cover. Here’s what it says now:

Sailing westward toward the Caribbean sun, young Bettina Verlaine obediently sets out to fulfill the promise made by her father–but not by her heart–a prearranged marriage destined not to be…once the notorious Captain Tristan’s pirate ship appears on the horizon.

Abducted by the bold and handsome brigand, the pale-haired beauty surrenders her innocence in the warm caress of the tropical winds–detesting her virile captor for enslaving her. . .yet loving him for the passionate spell he casts over fragile, yearning heart.

And here’s what the original edition says:

Sun-Blazed Beaches

With languid tropic breezes caressing her breathtakingly beautiful face, Bettina Verlaine stood before the mast, sailing westward to fulfil a promise her heart never made–marriage to a Count her eyes had never beheld.

Then in a moment of swashbuckling courage, the pirate Tristan swept her away and the spell of his passion was cast over her heart forever.

But many days–and fiery nights–must pass before their love could flower into that fragile blossom a woman gives to only one man.

Star-Lit Coves

Both descriptions make things sound sexy and seductive, though. How does it start?

The book opens with Bettina called to the drawing room of her father. She already knows that it’s going to be about her getting married, because she’s at the ripe old age of nineteen and most young women of her station are married off by fourteen or fifteen, but her father has been very strange in not getting her married sooner. Not true. Even among nobility, getting married in your early teens just wasn’t the norm. GOOD NEWS, HISTORICAL ROMANCE AUTHORS: You don’t have to tie yourself in knots to explain why you’re writing about an actual adult heroine.

The point of view in this first scene shifts between Bettina and her mother Jossel without warning, which few publishing houses would tolerate these days. Her mother is upset and doesn’t want Bettina sent away to get married, but Bettina is resigned. This is just how things are in 1667 and they’ll remain that way probably forever. (“Ho, ho,” I imagine the liberated women of ’78 chortling.) Here we get a bit of Bettina’s personality:

“Yes, Papa,” Bettina said quietly, amazed at her own self-control.

“You will leave in a month. This will not give you much time to make your trousseau, so I will hire dressmakers to help you. Comte de Lambert resides on Saint Martin, an island in the Caribbean, so you will travel by ship. Unfortunately, it will be a long and tedious voyage. Madeleine, your old nurse, will go with you as chaperone and companion.”

“Why must I go so far away?” Bettina exploded. “Surely there must be someone here in France I could marry.”

“By the Blessed Virgin!” Andre shouted, his otherwise milky complexion turning quite red. He stood up and glared at his wife. “I sent her to that convent to learn obedience! But all those years were wasted, I can see. She still questions my authority.”

“If you would only take her wishes into consideration, Andre. Is that too much to ask?” Jossel ventured.

“Her wishes are of no concern, madame,” said Andre. “And I will not stand for any more of your opposition. The betrothal has been arranged and cannot be undone. Bettina will marry Comte Pierre de Lambert. I pray God he can curb her defiance where I have failed!”

Bettina bristled. Did her father always have to talk as if she were not even present, as if she were of no consequence at all? She loved her father, but sometimes—in fact, most times—he made her so mad she could scream.

“May I be excused now, Papa?” she asked.

“Yes, yes,” he replied irritably. “You have been told all that you need to know.”

WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE CALLS HIS WIFE “MADAME”???

Andre the Asshole, that’s who.

There’s a lot of exposition here (we know where she’s going, we know where she’s leaving, and we know who is going with her and what their relationship is), but it doesn’t feel very natural on first read. But then as the chapter goes on, it becomes clear that some of the unnaturalness has to be due to her father’s utter detachment:

But to counteract these feelings was a kind of joy—joy that she would not be completely alone on this journey. Madeleine would be with her, dear Maddy, whom she loved as much as she loved her mother.

This dude’s telling her who Madeleine is in part because he has no clue what really matters to his daughter. It’s nice and subtle and gets the point across. Until we get several paragraphs of telling instead of showing, which obliterates that subtlety:

Bettina had been a cheerful child until she began to wonder why her father didn’t love her. This weighed heavily on her young mind, and she tried desperately to gain her father’s love and approval. When she didn’t succeed and he still ignored her, she began to be troublesome, just to gain his attention. It wasn’t enough that she was showered with love by her mother and Madeleine. She had to have her father’s love, too. At her young age, she couldn’t understand why her father disliked her; she didn’t know that he had wanted a son. And a daughter was all he would ever have, for Jossel couldn’t have any more children.

So Bettina developed a temper. She began to throw tantrums, to be defiant and disrespectful. She hated her father when he sent her away to school, and continued with her troublesome ways at the convent. But after a few years she learned to accept her fate.

She realized that it was her own fault that she had been sent away. The sisters taught her to control her temper. They taught her obedience and patience. When she came home, she no longer resented her father.

Nothing had changed. Her father was still a stranger to her, but Bettina accepted this, too. She stopped feeling sorry for herself and gave up trying to win his approval. She had her mother’s love, and she had Maddy. She learned to be grateful for what she did have.

The urge to info-dump in the first chapter can be overpowering at times. I know most of my first drafts are guilty of this. This could’ve been so much stronger without these long passages where we’re told how Bettina feels instead of letting us see and feel it ourselves, though.

And that’s the end of the first chapter. Very little actually happens beyond two brief conversations and a whole lot of exposition. I’m drawn into the story, but not as well as I could be. Lindsey definitely grew a lot as a storyteller over the years. This was only her second novel published.

How could this have started better? Maybe if the story only began when Bettina is actually leaving. She could reflect on her unhappiness, perhaps argue with her father before accepting her fate. It would give a chance to illustrate their relationship and her father’s coldness, as he shows no concern over his only child sailing across the Atlantic. A lot of books being published today will have both main characters meeting in the first chapter, but I’m all right with a slightly slower start than that. The protagonists will fall in love and all, sure, but they’re both separate people and I don’t think it’s terrible to give them each a little time on their own.

So far, I can see why I enjoyed the book, especially as a kid. A beautiful young woman who feels unloved by a parent and abandoned is basically the Disney princess template. A bit chilling to consider: repressing her anger and learning to just helplessly accept whatever cruelty she receives from the men in her life sets her up as someone who’ll have a hard time escaping abuse. I’m genuinely enjoying the book, though, which is a pleasant surprise. I’d really worried I wouldn’t. Of course, I haven’t gotten to Tristan yet…

On Monday I’ll start chapter two.

In which a Muppet otter gives me bad advice

Lots of people find their own dreams endlessly fascinating and want to share them, much to the eye-rolling irritation of the people around them. Usually when someone tells you about their dreams it’ll be something like “I was in this place that’s part of my ordinary life, but there was something non-ordinary about it!” And dreams are weird and feel real, so of course these kinds of dreams will stand out to us. We want to share the experience. Chances are, nobody else wants to hear about it.

I wasn’t a Muppet, however. More on that later.

So if you don’t want to hear about yet another stupid dream I had, you can go ahead and close this tab now. My feelings won’t be hurt.

THAT BEING SAID. OMG you guys, I had the weirdest dream.

I was the housekeeper in a mansion in, I believe, Santa Barbara. (A lot of my dreams take place in random locations in California, for some reason.) But I was the Downton Abbey era of housekeeper, where I was in a senior position over a lot of other staff. Those staff were Muppet animals and they were as impossible to work with as you can imagine.

Pictured: NOT THE SCARIEST SCREENCAP

But it got worse. This particular mansion had a room in it that was a nightmare jungle. I’m fairly certain this part of the dream was inspired by a movie that I shouldn’t have been allowed to watch as a small child but I was and it traumatized me for life and just looking at screencaps now made me cringe. I don’t think my mother’s ever been into horror movies, so I probably saw this at my cousin’s house and now I totally got them in trouble.

The owner of the house and our employer was in the nightmare jungle room, because of course he was, and we had to go and retrieve him from his own stupidity. During our excursions into the nightmare jungle room, various members of the staff would disappear. During one  of these rescue missions, I found a group portrait of all of the missing staff. I realized it was actually a magical portrait that was holding the staff captive, however, because their noses were running with real snot. I…I don’t know. Maybe that’s how magic works.

They had a wingspan over 6 metres (20 ft).

I grabbed the portrait, which was giant and difficult for one person to carry so I brought in help, and began my trek back out of the nightmare jungle room. All the while, I was scared that a tiger would jump out at me. Instead IT WAS A PTERANODON. It swooped down and grabbed a scullery maid (because, obviously, you want to bring a scullery maid with you into the jungle). Dream Me is endlessly more badass than Real Me, as I leapt into the air, grabbed onto the pteranodon’s creepy bird neck and broke it.

What the hell? This is how my subconscious deals with dinosaurs? Just running around snapping necks? I’ll take it, of course, but a slightly more believable secret move would’ve been nice.

Seriously? There really was a Muppet badger?

We didn’t succeed in dragging our stupid employer out of the nightmare jungle room, but we were able to rescue our coworkers from the magical portrait, including a grumpy old badger.

It turned out that the grumpy old badger and an otter on staff were old business partners, because members of the weasel family gotta stick together. They liked to run shell games and other small cons down at the beach. However, as Muppet animals, they were discriminated against by the police and would be harassed and thrown off the beach, or even picked up by animal control.

As their friend with human privilege, they wanted me to get a vendor’s license and set up a booth down at the beach so they’d have a legitimate front for their criminal operations. I told them that I couldn’t possibly do that. Why? Not because it was illegal (I apparently didn’t care about people who were stupid enough to be conned out of their money by two cloth weasels), but because I was too damn busy. I had writing to do.

Except, y’know, he was in beach wear.

I explained all of this to the otter as patiently as I could. There were too many books to write. I needed to “diversify my portfolio.” It simply was a better long-term investment for me to work on writing than on ripping off tourists. My little otter friend gave me a disgusted look (you’d be surprised how expressive a Muppet can be) and asked me seriously if I really wanted to write romance novels for the rest of my life, when I could instead be having fun on the beach.

Well, I’d much rather write romance novels than be a con-artist, yes. But beyond that I had so many other things I wanted to write too! There was my YA novel about fairies in Vegas. Or my NA novel about a Trickster god in Minneapolis. And then there was the epic fantasy series I’d someday finish! There was so much to write, and it’d be difficult to do all of that if I was always running from the law and ripping off tourists for a few bucks here and there.

Alas, the otter wasn’t impressed. He assured me that being a criminal was a far better investment of my time and talent than writing and I’d really regret not joining with him and the badger. Despite all this, I still turned him down.

The end.

No, I didn’t have anything harder than a cup of chamomile tea before bed. I really don’t know WTF.