For sheer pith, of course, nothing can match Breakup Girl Haiku. But Morning Glory of Jezebel has given us a veritable Valentine of (swollen) purple prose, by pointing us — through this post — to the Tumblr Romance Club. There, as MoGlo puts it, “sometimes embarrassed but always funny consumers of erotic literature…write book reviews summarizing their paper conquests.” The sheer hilarity of these descriptions is BG-post-worthy enough (“Larkspur is a fair maiden on the Chrystal Isle in the Avalon Sea whose father is a dolphin shifter [he can take both forms]. This is pretty irrelevant to the plot, but they mention it, so I thought I would too.”); go now and read through the whole site. I’ll wait.

OK. See, what I adore about those Tumblr posts — and frankly, what makes for the best humor in general — is the (heaving, pounding) heart behind them. These writers are fans, fans who get what’s funny about these books and who get sincere unironic pleasure from them. They don’t kid because they snark. They kid because they love.

But anyway, so the original Jez post took to task a recent USA Today article that advised gentlemen (PAY ATTENTION!): “If you want to show the woman you love how much you care, take a page from a romance novel: look into her eyes, focus on what she says and really talk to her.” This gave MoGlo pause. “Wait a second. What? Act more like dudes in romance novels? Aren’t dudes in romance novels kind of… rapey?”

She’s referring, in part, to this Romance Club review:

BUT! When it comes time for the sexxing, Kit decides that he’s had enough of the wooing, and straight-up says that he will have her, even if it means raping her.

*RECORDSCRATCH*

Now, to be fair, Rue gets into the whole thing, but STILL. YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT. It’s gross, and not only that, it’s totally unnecessary. Kresley Cole has a sh*tload of paranormal alpha heroes, and not ONCE is there even a hint of coercion. Our girl Zoe Archer has paranormal historical alpha heroes, and they do not rape. Because unlike Kit, they manage to be both hot AND not a total f*cking *sshole.

I was enjoying the book up until this point, since there’s a lot of really awesome historical dress and house pr0n, lots of fun Independent Woman action from the heroine, and lots of dragons. But at this point, I don’t care how much Rue likes this dude. He dropped an r-bomb. That is not sexy. Ever. No.”

First of all, I am totally borrowing “*RECORDSCRATCH*.” Second, amen. Third, an update. I’m pleased to note that Romance Club responded to the Jez post with this caveat: “…[T]he rapey review I posted this morning was a complete coincidence, and really, the genre has for the most part moved FAR beyond those kinds of plot devices. Free sh*tty books, while always hilarious, are not the best examples of the genre. I’ve reviewed several books I’ve absolutely loved, and none of them have any kind of forced sex whatsoever.” Good to know. No. really!

And just to circle back to the top, it turns out — if this study is any indication — that women are more attracted to pirates who really listen men whose feelings are unclear. NOT BECAUSE WE “LIKE” TO BE JERKED AROUND. But simply because when you’re not 100% sure if someone’s into you, you spend more time thinking about them, which in turn only heightens your interest. (Clearly this gargoyle did not get that memo.)

What she said (emphasis added):

Whether withdrawal of consent is what actually happened here is impossible to tell, so I’m not suggesting that Assange is a rapist or that these charges are 100% definitely on-point; I have no idea. But neither do the commentators who are saying that Assange did nothing more than have sex without a condom. And it’s important to counter the “haha sex by surprise those crazy Swedes” media narrative with the fact that actually, non-consensual sex is assault and should be recognized as such by law. Consenting to one kind of sexual act doesn’t mean that you consent to anything else your partner wants to do; if it’s agreed that the only kind of sex we’re having is with a condom, then it does remove an element of consent to have sex without a condom with only one partner’s knowledge. To use another example, if you and your partner agree that you can penetrate her, it doesn’t necessarily follow that she has the green light to penetrate you whenever and however.

I’m not particularly interested in debating What Assange Did or Whether Assange Is A Rapist, and I’d appreciate it if we could steer clear of that in the comments section. Rather, I’m interested in pushing back on the primary media narrative about this case, which is that women lie and exaggerate about rape, and will call even the littlest thing — a broken condom! — rape if they’re permitted to under a too-liberal feminist legal system. In fact, there are lots of good reasons to support consent-based sexual assault laws, and to recognize that consent goes far beyond “yes you can put that in here now.” It’s a shame that the shoddy, sensationalist reporting on this case have muddied those waters.

There.