shel

Shel

@shel

The Transsexual Chofetz Chaim

Mutant, librarian, poet, union rabble rouser, dog, Ashkenazi Jewish. Neuroweird, bodyweird, mostly sleepy.

I write about transformative justice, community, love, Judaism, Neurodivergence, mental health, Disability, geography, rivers, labor, and libraries; through poetry, opinionated essays, and short fiction.

I review Schoolhouse Rock! songs at @PropagandaRock

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@shel
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shel
@shel

I'm weeding the romance novels for condition and these things are so fragile I swear it'll have only 7 circulations and the spine will be unreadable and there will be pages falling out and chips off the cover. It's like they're printed on tissues. And they're all so similar. Dukes. Cowboys. Christmas. Cowboys on Christmas. Christmas with the Duke. The Duke of Cowboys. The Cowboy Christmas with the Duke. One of them is literally called The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo.

shel
@shel

Attention middle aged and elderly straight women of Philadelphia. I understand that the bathtub is the only place where you can masturbate. I understand that romance novels are your only acceptable source of porn. But please stop dropping library books in the bath and then returning them like we all don't know exactly what happened

shel
@shel

Why it "Scottish" a romance novel subgenre

20% of these books emphasize that the love interest is Scottish as the primary theme. Why

shel
@shel

I want this applied to the other "ethnic whites."

  • "Litvish Lover"
  • "Siesta with a Sicilian Sous Chef"
  • "All Man Albanian"
  • "Kielbasa for Dessert"
  • "Secret Serbian Affair"
  • "Bosnian in Bed"
  • "Hungry for Hungarian Love"
  • "Greek Greetings"
  • "Cry Me A Crimean"
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in reply to @shel's post:

devinsinger
@devinsinger

Heh, way back in the day when I worked at Waldenbooks, those romance novels (the mostly-Harlequin ones with the covers color-coded by kink) were treated like magazines - they came in every two weeks and got thrown out if they didn't sell in a month, because there were always new ones coming in.

And they sold, in droves, to people with reams of the $5 coupons that you got for every $100 you spent with your Waldenbooks membership. Dunno if they ever got re-read, though.

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in reply to @shel's post:

spiders
@spiders

as somepony who read outlander and other straight romance novels in her I'm A Totally Straight And Normal Trans Woman phase, while they were making the tv series, i know for a fact that "highland romance" as a oddly-specific genre goes back way before the tv show, because i would find book after book of tattered old highland romance in used bookstores from before that series

its possible that it's popularity is due to the book Outlander tho, which goes back to 1991. Outlander is, all things considered, a pretty cool and well-written book with an interesting plot*, alongside being horny for huge stinky scottish dudes (post-world war nurse gets transported back in time hundreds of years, uses her modern medical knowledge to gain social standing, and faces a Timeline Meddling Dilemma of "should i try to stop the jacobite uprising, given that i know they are going to get completely fucking crushed").

But also, maybe it was a Thing even before that, and outlander is just a particularly well-written/influential spin on the trope. idk, im not a historian. i bet the tv series gave the subgenre a boost in popularity tho. but its been a Thing since long before the tv series.

*at least as well as i can remember; i havent read it in like 8 years

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in reply to @shel's post:

devinsinger
@devinsinger

[Sicilian] (https://www.goodreads.com/group/bookshelf/10791-harlequin-presents-readers?shelf=italian-or-sicilian-hero)
Albanian
[Greek] (https://www.amazon.com/Greeks-Forgotten-Marriage-Harlequin-Presents/dp/133573922X/ref=asc_df_133573922X/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=658908882122&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18078265077145087396&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001638&hvtargid=pla-2088873362522&psc=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw2K6lBhBXEiwA5RjtCb3qB_b1EtGqRqNrXuEdqNwIZf5NolfF52W9kiWGM_Q8mhBTWB86thoCERcQAvD_BwE)

Absolutely a thing, yeah! Lotta Greek, lotta Sicilian (and Italian more generally.) Sometimes they get as exotic as "desert warrior", although those don't usually mention specific nationalities.

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