Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha
Feb. 18th, 2020 09:07 pmBeyond Shame
3/5. Start of a long series that is roughly 50% post apocalypse rebellion against an authoritarian state and roughly 50% kinky porn. Roughly. Har har har.
I was kind of more interested in the plot than the porn. The whole thing is aggressively invested in letting you know how hard core it is, in a very written-by-a-teenager way (which it isn't, AFAIK). But it has something going on, despite doing a number of things I find annoying, like treating vaginal penetration as the ultimate most intimate bestest sex act. And it's interesting – there's a lot of M/F and group sex, but at least in this first book, no M/M. Which first confused me because this is clearly a book for women. It is for women – it centers female desire and female sexuality in a way that flirts with male gaze but never quite gets all the way there. Mostly it made me think how weird and sad it is that I have been taught to code content of this sort, particularly a sexually-charged female friendship, as inherently male gazey.
3/5. Start of a long series that is roughly 50% post apocalypse rebellion against an authoritarian state and roughly 50% kinky porn. Roughly. Har har har.
I was kind of more interested in the plot than the porn. The whole thing is aggressively invested in letting you know how hard core it is, in a very written-by-a-teenager way (which it isn't, AFAIK). But it has something going on, despite doing a number of things I find annoying, like treating vaginal penetration as the ultimate most intimate bestest sex act. And it's interesting – there's a lot of M/F and group sex, but at least in this first book, no M/M. Which first confused me because this is clearly a book for women. It is for women – it centers female desire and female sexuality in a way that flirts with male gaze but never quite gets all the way there. Mostly it made me think how weird and sad it is that I have been taught to code content of this sort, particularly a sexually-charged female friendship, as inherently male gazey.