Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

[lightreads]

Welcome to Temptation (Dempsey Book 1)

3/5. A rather slapdash romance about two women coming to a small town to film what turns out to be porn (sort of) and the straight-laced mayor who may not want to win his next election and etc. Giving it good....ish marks only because it got me through the second major dog surgery/hospitalization in under eight weeks, so okay.

Not her best by far, but I don't really want to talk about that. I want to talk about sex.

This book is . . . confused about sex, let us say. Nonconsensually bringing a third party in to watch a couple having sex in order to fulfill a discovery fantasy that the dude never even stopped to ascertain whether his partner even has? That's apparently fine. Filming two consenting adults having sex? Disgusting and reprehensible, apparently.

This book is so confused, I can't even put my finger on what issues Crusie is putting out on the laundry line here. But boy, they sure are out there. This is one of those books that is sex positive right up until the point when it snaps back to incredibly shaming and sex negative, and I just have no.freakin'.clue.why.

Well, I know why. We all know why. Just, y'know. Confused.

Comments

[buymeaclue]

So sorry to hear about doggish troubles! Hope the whatever-it-was was as successful as could be.

[jadelennox]

Oddly, I was reading this book at the same time, because I wanted to reread the companion Faking It. And I had a very Joss Whedony experience on this read. I loved the chracters and their banter, but it fell apart every time I thought about the sex and the relationships.

In Temptation, he's so smug that he won't have sex with her when she's drunk -- but he'll lay her down on a dock and go down on her, because that's not sex. He eventually realizes he's being emotionally abusive, but she never realizes it, and the person who points that out isn't a trustworthy narrator.

Faking It holds together better, except for aaargh the treatment of orgasm and frigidity. She'd actually be a well-written ace character, at the beginning. Except of course she can't be ace.

And then. THEN.

Okay, I have to quote a lengthy section, and keep in mind that I love this book, that I've Yuletided this book. But my GOD.

The Essex kicked in the opening bars of “Easier Said Than Done,” and Tilda said, “You know—”

“Later,” Davy said and slid his fingers into her jeans.

“Oh. Hey.” Tilda closed her eyes and decided to push him away in a couple of minutes. Or maybe not at all. If he kept doing that for about half an hour, she’d even take off some clothes. Davy pushed up her T-shirt, narrowly missing her chin, and she yanked it back down again as he pulled her hips down to his. The pressure there was nice as long as she kept her eyes closed and thought, LouiseLouiseLouise . Then he stopped kissing her long enough to strip off her jeans and slide between her legs. Maybe not, she thought, as he shoved off his jeans. Birth control, we didn‘t —

“Wait,” she said, opening her eyes, careful not to look down. “I don’t have—”

He held up a condom and went for her mouth again, and she thought, If I say no, he’ll stop, and then we’ll have to talk about it, and that’ll be terrible , and he did feel good, if she could just get her head straight—

Come on, she told herself, and tried to work herself into the mood, concentrating on how solid his arms were around her, how wonderful it was to be held, how good his mouth felt, finally generating enough heat that when he pulled her hips to his and she felt him hard against her and then hard inside her, it didn’t hurt— there’s a recommendation for you, she thought: it didn’t hurt . She moaned for effect, more surprised he was inside her than shocked—this is what happened when you didn’t pay attention, they got ahead of you, and there you were—and it wasn’t that she wasn’t ready, exactly, it was more that Louise would have felt more. There would have been gasping with Louise, she was sure of it.

Of course, Louise wasn’t asthmatic.

She began to move with him, trying to pick up his rhythm, which was hard because she kept slipping down the couch. Oh, hell , she thought, and moved her hand to brace herself on the back of the couch and caught him across the nose.

Don’t have a nosebleed, she thought, please don’t have a nosebleed , but he just said, “Ouch,” and kept going.

Single-minded, she thought. Okay, there is no Louise, Louise is like the Easter Bunny, so just breathe heavy and get this over with and never go near this man again . She took deep breaths, not even trying to match his because they were never going to be in sync, and once she stopped trying and started breathing, things got better. He picked up speed, and Tilda tried to imagine the tightening of her muscles and did a damn good job with those moans as the minutes passed and her pulse picked up. Then he shifted against her and hit something good, and she sucked in her breath and thought, Wait a minute, this could —but even as she had the thought, he shuddered in her arms and that was it. Just hell , she thought, and finished off with an oh-my-god-that-was-good moan-sigh combo.

So much for channeling her inner Louise. He was semi-mindless on top of her now, so she held him, patting him on the back while he caught his breath and Pippy Shannon sang “I Pretend” on the jukebox. Our song , Tilda thought.

Steve dozed on the rug beside the couch, oblivious to both of them. He had the right idea. She should have taken a nap instead.

Then Davy pushed himself up on one arm and looked in her eyes, nose to nose. “So what was that?” he said, still breathing hard, looking mad. “A fake or a forgery?”

“Hey.” She tried to sit up, and he shook his head.

“You’re a terrible actress,” he said, and collapsed on top of her again.

“Your foreplay was okay,” she said crushingly to the top of his head. “Your afterplay sucks.”

“Sorry,” he said, clearly not, and eased away from her, and she looked at the ceiling as she pulled up her jeans, and he got rid of the condom and got dressed.

“Well, gee, I can’t thank you enough,” she said when they were both clothed again. She made her eyes wide. “What a good time.”

He shook his head and turned away from her. “Good night, Tilda. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ouch, she thought, and then he turned back and said, “Look, don’t fake. It’s lousy for everybody.”

“Gee, you sounded like you were having a pretty good time,” Tilda said, stung. He started to say something and then shook his head again and headed for the door.

Aaaaaaaaaargh. Basically, he pressures an asthmatic near-stranger into sex; she has a rotten time but fakes it for the reasons women so often fake it; he knows she's faking; he keeps pumping away anyway, and then he is angry at her.

I don't even know what to do with this scene.