Teresa D'Amario

wish you hadn’t? That happened to me recently. I wasn’t going to blog about this, but something in the books really bothered me.  First, let me say I’m not author bashing.  I’m not book bashing. If I were, I’d be putting the title out there for everyone to see and judge. No, I’m just discussing something I’ve seen in a few shapeshifter books that bothers me.

When ARE was having it’s sale, I picked up several titles from authors I’ve seen online who I wanted to give them a try. I was very excited to finally get my hands on one particular author’s work.  I won’t be sharing the title of the book in question.  Though the writing skill in 2 of the stories was amazing, I still did not enjoy what I read.

The book was about shapeshifters, and the world building was very original.  I won’t go into detail, because that would then give away the story, and that’s not what this post is about.

What bothered me about the stories was  the “sex” in the book.

Now I’m no prude, which you are aware of, if you’ve read my books.  And what I don’t write, I can usually read – up to a point.  (I don’t like m/m books at all, though I know alot of people do.)  But in two of the anthology stories, sex was used as a control factor. Up to the point, and including “Non consensual” sex for one character in each of the first two stories.

In the first, the hero must accept oral sex from another man, or be killed (which didn’t make a lot of sense to me in that scene). In the 2nd, the heroine must accept sex from the hero’s brother, or they’ll be kicked out of their pack.  Hey, at least they were equal opportunity rapists in that world.

While the scenes were accepted by all characters involved as just another “Method of showing subservience” in a pack like environment, I wasn’t impressed. In fact, both scenes pulled me completely out of the respective stories. Even though the writing was smooth through the sections, and the characters were okay with being “ordered” to do such things, I wasn’t. I was no longer enjoying this interesting world.  I didn’t want to see people pretend that this was okay, while the author was specifically telling the reader how uncomfortable the characters involved were.  In fact, the only reason I didn’t put the book down was I am one of those people who USUALLY finishes every book she begins, no matter how much I suffer through it.

But this is my problem with these types of books:  Knowing animals as I do, I can honestly say cats and canines do not use sex for submission. Sure, the males will “Hump” your sofa, your leg, whatever, trying to shove you into a submissive level, but they do not rape. I hear ducks do, and I hear the orangutan does, but canines and cats do not. So I couldn’t look to the animal parts of their world to find a reason for this behavior.

Every bit of it reeked of human control, rather than animal. In the stories, it’s hinted these situations occurred BECAUSE they were shifters, and BECAUSE animals did such a thing. The animals in these cases do not.

And the third story, you ask? It was good, but not my cup of tea either, but that was simply my mistake at not reading what that story was about before I started reading it.

So, despite the beautiful writing, the awesome world building, and the correlation of the three stories, I probably will be more careful the next time I chose a book by any of these three authors.  I know they are not the only authors to present animals in this light, to use sex in a more controlling manner, bordering on rape (Ok, to me those two scenes were rape).  And I know many folks do not have problems with this type of story.  What about you?  Do you think Rape is okay if it’s perceived as “okay” in the book? Or do you think this is a mistake when authors push the envelope to this point?

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