S06:41: The Devil of Downtown (Yeah, He Is) by Joanna Shupe
We are talking about a full on banger this week — Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, which is Sarah’s favorite of the Uptown Girls series (Jen is a The Prince of Broadway fan, but honestly, all three are basically perfect). We love this one so much, you’re about to get an hour or so of squeeing and sighing — Jack Mulligan is everything you could possibly want in a romance hero, Justine Greene is the do goodingest do gooder who ever was, and the way they adore each other is enough to wreck you. If you haven’t read this one yet, do yourself a favor and go read the whole series right now…Joanna Shupe proves that historical romance is everything you want.
If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where 1000 other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Show Notes
Joanna Shupe also writes mafia romance under the pen name Mila Finelli, and we love The Kings of Italy series.
The Greene sisters are loosely based on the Schuyler Sisters, made famous by the musical Hamilton.
On the TV show The Wire, a popular drug dealer named Stringer Bell only moved up to the big leagues of evil once he started buying up real estate and rubbing elbows with politicians and businessmen, who are portrayed as the biggest crooks of all.
The story of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire is tragic, and ultimately led to labor reforms around the country.
The Sex in the City gals have some thoughts about butt stuff.
The Uptown Girls Series
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Check out their new $40 Swoony Subscription Box for a monthly delivery of brand new, hand-selected romance novels and access to a discussion Discord. July’s box includes
TRIPLE SEC by TJ Alexander,
FOR REAL by Alexis Hall, and
A LIAISON WITH HER LEADING LADY by Lotte R. James
S05.27: Teachers and Librarians in Romance
We’re talking about teachers and librarians in romance today, but don’t worry — not hot-for-teacher kinds of teachers and librarians (someday, Sarah will do that one on her own, maybe). Instead, we’re talking about romances with main characters who are teachers or librarians, in honor of the hardworking, committed teachers and librarians who are fighting book bans all across the United States right now.
And speaking of book bans…we’ve got author, activist and our friend Jarrett Dapier back with us this week to talk about the upcoming Spring off-cycle elections that are taking place around the country in the coming weeks…and how book bans are on the ballot in so many places right now. We encourage you to check the dates of your local elections, and make sure that if school or library board positions are on the ballot, you’ve done some research before you head to the polls!
This episode has some unfixable audio deficiencies. Sorry about that.
You can still get tickets to Fated Mates Live! Join us this Friday, March 24 in New York City with Tessa Bailey, Andie J. Christopher, Mila Finelli, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe! Amazing stories will be told, many laughs will be had, terrific books will be on sale, and there will be a bar! Get tickets now!
Our first read along of 2023 (soon! we promise!) is Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.
Show Notes
Welcome Jarrett Dapier, author of Mr. Watson's Chickens, back to the podcast. He was a guest on our first book banning episode, click to listen and see the show notes. This is a time for action, not just being a keyboard warrior. Check our your local paper if you have one, your school district website, and your library’s website.
Wondering if there are upcoming elections in your state? Check out Rock the Vote and click on your state. You can find information about off-cycle elections, which is what non-November election are called (not “off brand” as Sarah accidentally said on the pod.)
Moms for Liberty is bad, actually. These groups trying to ban books continue to ramp up their efforts—they are specifically targeting books with any kind of queer characters, regardless of sexual content, books with people of color, and books that tell the accurate story of our history. Other states are looking to ban books with any kind of sexual content. If you are looking for the big picture, you must follow the censorship tag at Book Riot. Reporter Kelly Jensen has been on the front line of this story for years, and if you’re looking for resources this monster thread she keeps pinned to her twitter profile has ideas for how to take action. You should also check out this list to find an anti-censorship group to join in your area.
The story about the library board in Niles, Illinois; an exciting new Right to Read law making it’s way through the Illinois state congress could be duplicated in your state! Call your local rep and senator and tell them you support the freedom to read. Author Laurie Halse Anderson is a model for how you can show up.
As for book recommendations this week, check out the list of romances about librarians from SuperWendy, and this list from Jessica Pryde, Hot for Teacher (but not Mine). And last but not least, Jen’s list of Who Did it Better in the Library.
Books with Teachers and Librarians
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S03.06: We Are Grateful For You - Freewheeling with Sarah & Jen
This is a tough week for everyone, so we did what we could do to make ourselves feel a little bit more ourselves despite existential despair—we recorded a podcast. We’re all over the place (we promise this won’t be a theme for the whole season!), but we recommend a TON of books, which is basically all we can do.
We’ve got another episode for you later this week, and next week, we’re deep diving on Alisha Rai’s Serving Pleasure, which is a fantastic erotic romance. Find it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.
Also -- Sarah has a contemporary novella out September 15th! Preorder the Naughty Brits anthology, wherever you get your ebooks: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple, or in print at bookshop.org.
Show Notes
Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls is available wherever books are sold, and you can listen to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. The RBG episode is here.
You can watch a documentary about RBG, or read the Notorious RBG book, or wear the RBG dissent collar now.
RBG's "When there are nine," quote is: "When I'm sometimes asked 'When will there be enough {women on the Supreme Court}?' and I say 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."
Tom Hardy might be James Bond and we're fine with it. Melissa did some great work pairing pictures of Tom Hardy as Sarah MacLean covers. Here's a thread of Henry Cavill as Sarah MacLean covers, too. Let it be known Sarah has the best readers around.
The Jurgen Klopp thread from comedian Laura Lexx is a thing of great beauty.
These Fifty Shades movies are terrible but we can't stop watching them and we don't understand it either, you guys.
Masquerades are great. We talked about how historicals do masquerades more than contemporaries, and we couldn't name any contemporaries with masquerades, but then Sarah immediately picked up the Dark Fairy Tales anthology, which is brand new, 99 cents, and in which all the stories are connected by a masque. You should get it. You deserve nice things.
Also, the fact that we didn't mention Sweet Ruin is causing Sarah some pretty deep shame.
You should wear your undies over your garters. Dita Von Teese confirms this. Apparently this is referred to as "The French Way."
TRANSCRIPT
Ani DiFranco Music Lyric 0:00 / #
My mother was a feminist, she taught me to see the road to ruin is paved with patriarchy. So, let the way of the women guide democracy. From plunder and pollution let mother earth be free. Feminism ain't about women. No, that's not who it is for. It's about a shifting consciousness that'll bring an end to war. So listen up you fathers, listen up you sons. Which side are you on now, which side are you on.
Sarah MacLean 0:38 / #
So we threw our plan out for the week.
Jennifer Prokop 0:40 / #
We did.
Sarah MacLean 0:42 / #
Cuz everything is terrible.
Jennifer Prokop 0:44 / #
Yeah. It's been a bad week.
Sarah MacLean 0:49 / #
Literally, the first thing I texted Jen last night was we got to do a podcast this week. We got to do an episode.
Jennifer Prokop 0:56 / #
Well, because it's September 19. We're recording and last night, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.
Sarah MacLean 1:03 / #
So I sat on the floor of my bathroom for a little while and cried. And then I walked out of the bathroom and Eric was standing in the hallway. I said, "I feel like this is real existential. This is what existential despair feels like". And he said, "You only just got here."
Jennifer Prokop 1:22 / #
Yeah, there was this Onion article, I guess, it was a tweet. It was sort of like, man who thought he lost all hope realizes he'd really, like really? Now? And that was that was me. Right? I was like, oh.
Sarah MacLean 1:37 / #
But also we had planned to start Joy this week. As a podcast concept. And you know.
Jennifer Prokop 1:46 / #
Maybe...can I suggest that we talk about romance as solace this week, then?
Sarah MacLean 1:51 / #
Yeah. I mean, it's all part and parcel, right? As my mom would say. I don't know. What would we say? We are...I think we are sad. And scared, and mad. And pissed off.
Jennifer Prokop 2:15 / #
Yeah, we're angry. You know? Well, let's say welcome to Fated Mates. Before we move on, we should actually tell people what they're listening to.
Sarah MacLean 2:24 / #
I'm Sarah MacLean. I write romance novels, and I read romance novels.
Jennifer Prokop 2:29 / #
And I'm Jennifer Prokop. I am a romance reader and critic.
Sarah MacLean 2:34 / #
And we are here for you guys this week, because you're here for us this week. I woke up this morning to, a lot of tweets, and DMs. And I just want you guys to know I read a bunch of them out loud to Jen just now. And every one of them is making us feel better.
Jennifer Prokop 2:54 / #
Yeah. I guess what, you know what, here's one other thing I want to say before we start which is. This is like a thing we Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying is, I mean, she was an amazing woman, she, our democracy should not rest upon the life of one 87 year old white woman. This was also a week where we got some really shocking, not... maybe shocking is not the right word, but terrifying news about forced hysterectomies.
Sarah MacLean 3:24 / #
Horrible, monsterous news.
Jennifer Prokop 3:26 / #
Of women in detention by a doctor who is not even a doctor. And I think it's really important, you know, as two women who live in urban areas in blue states, this is, you know, there's a planned parenthood, I drive past all the time, my access to reproductive rights is not a question. That's not really true for women who live in red states. It's not true, where also, I think its not true for poor women. They are the ways in which reproductive rights have stratified based on your geography, based on your income, based on your race. You know, this has been a long time coming. And I think in some ways, I just want to say our existential fear and dread is because now it's everyone. Not just poor women, not just brown and black women, not just women in state, in rural states or rural areas. I mean, so it's really I think it's really hard.
Sarah MacLean 4:24 / #
And not just women.
Jennifer Prokop 4:25 / #
Not just women, right.
Sarah MacLean 4:28 / #
So, yeah, we're having we're having a, we're having a time of it, and I think so are a lot of you. So, we want to talk about how we move forward in this. So we're gonna do our best today. But if this is not a thing that you're ready to listen to, sure, maybe go back and listen to the Rune week episode. I am rereading "Sweet Ruin" for the 83rd time.
Jennifer Prokop 5:08 / #
Can we also talk about how amazing Ruth Bader Ginsburg was. So Little Romance and I one year went, and I dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Halloween. I, as you all know, teach in the middle school and Little Romance goes to my school. And he was like, "Well, I guess I'll go as a Supreme Court Justice, too." And then he asked a really interesting question, because kids are so funny. And I was like, "Well, you know, there's all these other dudes." And he said, "Well, which one is the most powerful?" I said, "Well, that would be Chief Justice John Roberts." And so he decided that that would be what he would tell people, I mean, he just wore like a black graduation robe. I will put the picture in show notes. It's amazing. Adorable. Um, he was like, "Yeah, I'll just tell everybody I'm John Roberts."
Sarah MacLean 5:55 / #
And imagine at the time you were like, "ugh", but now we're like, "Please God, make Roberts be the sane one in this mix."
Jennifer Prokop 6:04 / #
Yeah. Right.
Sarah MacLean 6:08 / #
Anyway. My Ruth Bader Ginsburg story is that I have a six year old girl, who is six years old in the age of "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls", which is a really fantastic Kickstarter that became a book series. It was Kickstarted as a hardcover book that is gorgeous. It's a storybook, where it's 50 women throughout the ages from Cleopatra, and Grace O'Malley, a pirate from the 1500s, to Serena Williams, and Malala Yousafzai. And what's amazing is many of these women you have heard of, many of them you have not heard of. And each book, each story is one page long. And then on the facing page is this gorgeous illustration of the the person, whoever the person is. We Kickstarted the first one, and then of course it took off, and now there are I think, three books.
Jennifer Prokop 7:27 / #
That's awesome.
Sarah MacLean 7:28 / #
But they've also started a podcast called, "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls". We will put links in show notes. I tweeted about it this morning. Because there is a Ruth Bader Ginsburg episode of the podcast, which is fabulous. And this is for like the parents out there. If you are looking for a way to explain Ruth Bader Ginsburg's life and legacy to littles. This podcast is really excellent. So it tells the story, it tells her story, her story of going to graduate school, of going to law school. And being a woman in law school and marrying Marty, and Marty getting cancer and her taking notes for him in class, all while making the Harvard Law Review. But it really is a, sort of, digestible story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's whole life as a rebel girl.
Jennifer Prokop 8:22 / #
That's awesome.
Sarah MacLean 8:23 / #
And my daughter loves this podcast. And you know, there are all sorts of very, very cool women as part of this podcast. And she's always telling me about these cool women from the podcast. And one day, she came to me about two or three months ago, and she said, "Mom, have you heard of Ruth Bader Ginsburg?" And I said, "I have heard her". And she said, "She is really cool, isn't she?" And I was like, "She really, really is." She's probably listened to that episode of the podcast 25 times. So, we'll put links to it in show notes. It's a great podcast, even for big rebel girls like us.
Jennifer Prokop 9:19 / #
Yeah. I think it's amazing the way in which her life was really celebrated when she was still alive. Like the notorious RBG book or the RBG documentary.
Sarah MacLean 9:33 / #
The Ruth Bader Ginsburg workout book.
Jennifer Prokop 9:36 / #
Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, I had a friend of mine, my friend, she texted me this morning. She's like,' look, I just ordered it because if she could be a badass at that age, then I can be a badass at my age". And I was like, I like it. I like it. So I think there was a way in which we celebrated her life while it was still going.
Sarah MacLean 9:56 / #
Yeah, she knew we thought she was awesome. Which is cool. That's not...that's not something everybody gets, right? I mean, I'm real bummed that we made this poor woman hold together a democracy. At her age she should have been able to live out her golden years. Right? Anyway, it's rough out there everyone, so you want to be gentle with yourselves. And I guess that's where Jen is going with romance as solace. You know, last night, I was sitting on the couch and I was sort of, you know, thousand yard staring at the TV. And Eric looked at me and was like, "What can you do right now? Like, can you read a romance novel?"
Jennifer Prokop 10:47 / #
I love that.
Sarah MacLean 10:47 / #
Like it was medicinal. "Would you like bourbon? Would you like marijuana?"
Jennifer Prokop 10:54 / #
Straight shot. Right? No fooling around.
Sarah MacLean 10:56 / #
"Is there a book you can be reading right now?" And then he was like, " You're an insominac, Jen is an insomniac. Why don't you just record a podcast?" And I was like, "What is happening right now?" He was like casting at straws. What can we be doing? Um, but I think that, you know, that is the point, right? The romance novel. His instinct was, go read a romance novel, because I know they make you happy. And I did actually get into bed and I read half of a romance novel that I can't tell any of you about because it doesn't technically exist. But it's great. And then this morning, you know, I just feel like, today, all I want to do is crawl into bed now with "Sweet Ruin". And you know...cuddle.
Jennifer Prokop 11:49 / #
I think it's really interesting to think about, romance novel is solace, but also the ways in which we approach that, because for me, that's rereading, but it's also for many people, they have the--we joke about the break in case of emergency romance. Right? That one by a favorite author that you have never read that you are like holding for that time. And I will tell you I have never read the Lisa Kleypas with Cam.
Jennifer Prokop 12:26 / #
I have been holding that... like it's been on for years. Years, I have been waiting for like a day where I just know that I'm gonna need, need that and I feel like this might be the day. Oh, this might be the day.
Sarah MacLean 12:45 / #
That's a big day. Yeah. I mean, Kresley if you're listening right now, it would be a great time to drop "Munro."
Jennifer Prokop 12:56 / #
God, like Calgon take me away.
Sarah MacLean 13:00 / #
Kresley is like, "These motherfuckers."
Jennifer Prokop 13:02 / #
No, listen. No Kresley loves us.
Sarah MacLean 13:08 / #
Oh, my God. I mean, literally a second before we started recording, I read the tweet that announced--Thank you Twitter for just always taking care of me--someone made sure that I saw that it is it is unconfirmed, but rumored that Tom Hardy is about to become James Bond. And I was like, I'm having a heart attack. I'm MacRieve braining over here. Because I can't handle it. It's...the highs and lows are too much.
Jennifer Prokop 13:45 / #
You know what's really funny is.... I did last night think maybe I should watch a James Bond movie.
Sarah MacLean 13:49 / #
Because you're reading Lee Child!
Jennifer Prokop 13:51 / #
Handsome men blow things up is real solace to me.
Sarah MacLean 13:54 / #
I mean, Tom Hardy taking off his shirt and shooting things.
Jennifer Prokop 13:58 / #
Fine.
Sarah MacLean 13:58 / #
I mean, I'll allow it.
Jennifer Prokop 14:00 / #
He'll have to like roll up his sleeves. Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 14:03 / #
Also, you know what else gave me joy yesterday? Yesterday morning was a very high and low day for me, Jen.
Jennifer Prokop 14:11 / #
That thread!
Sarah MacLean 14:12 / #
You guys, I know. We're all just trying to find hope and joy.
Jennifer Prokop 14:19 / #
Listen coping mechanisms are fine.
Sarah MacLean 14:22 / #
I woke up yesterday morning to a magnificent reader named Melissa to discover that she had spent her evening the night before, and I hope you enjoyed yourself, Melissa. Finding photographs of Tom Hardy that she could pair with Sarah MacLean covers. And then thread was Tom Hardy as Sarah MacLean covers, and it was really, really crazy. "The Day of the Duchess"....
Jennifer Prokop 14:51 / #
"The Day of The Duchess" one is unreal.
Sarah MacLean 14:56 / #
He's such a dirtbag! We are putting that show notes. For sure.
Jennifer Prokop 15:00 / #
Maybe that's all show notes is gonna be.
Sarah MacLean 15:02 / #
What is that picture? The whole picture for this episode should be Tom Hardy as "Day of the Duchess".
Jennifer Prokop 15:07 / #
I can make that happen, I can do that. I have the power. Oh, you know all the chapter images this week will just be those from that.
Sarah MacLean 15:17 / #
Oh my god. So anyway, thanks so much somebody else had done Henry Cavill as Sarah MacLean covers the day before ... you are out there doing the Lord's work for me this week. So thank you. I mean, yeah, I pulled up that Jurgen Klopp, tweet thread last night I was on the phone with you and I'm gonna go read that Jurgen Klopp tweet--This is where I'm at you guys-- I'm finding old Twitter threads to like just suck out the marrow of joy. But you know, then tonight we're hanging out with our friends, we have a plan for tonight to hang out with our good friends and watch this dumb 50 Shades movie.
Jennifer Prokop 16:09 / #
I don't even care. Listen, I don't know that we've updated everyone.
Sarah MacLean 16:13 / #
I'm enjoying it more than I really should, I think.
Jennifer Prokop 16:15 / #
Okay, so we watched number two with everyone now. Okay, so wait here's --everyone-- I have a secret.
Sarah MacLean 16:21 / #
If they're not listening--it's a secret? Jen we have tens of thousands of listeners.
Jennifer Prokop 16:27 / #
No, no this part isnt a secret, we know this part, no listen. If you listen, we talked about...Sarah watched the first one with the RITA writers room.
Sarah MacLean 16:39 / #
Really we don't have to refer to them that way anymore. How about... let's do it this way. Okay, just name them.
Jennifer Prokop 16:45 / #
So Alexis Daria, Adriana Herrera...was LaQuette watching it the first time around?
Sarah MacLean 16:50 / #
No, but LaQuette's on the thread because she just likes to mock us.
Jennifer Prokop 16:54 / #
Her text notification the next morning must be insane. Nisha Sharma, Tracey Livesey, and then Andie Christopher.
Sarah MacLean 17:01 / #
And so, here's the fun thing. So Tracey is basically cruise directing this whole thing. You all know this if you listened to the Tracey episode, we talked about this. So she's cruise directing and Nisha comes in. I mean, wearing the full...I mean, 50 Shades head to toe, she's got you know, Christian Grey sneakers. And then we go through the first movie. We watch together, then Jen joins us for 50 Shades...Freed?
Jennifer Prokop 17:32 / #
Okay, so here was the thing...
Sarah MacLean 17:33 / #
No. Darker.
Jennifer Prokop 17:36 / #
I watched the first one on my own I was like, I gotta catch up so that next time they watch...
Sarah MacLean 17:40 / #
Tell everyone this is a confession.
Jennifer Prokop 17:42 / #
Okay, this actual part it's a confession. It's not a secret it's a confession. So
Sarah MacLean 17:46 / #
Jen is a traitorous betrayer.
Jennifer Prokop 17:48 / #
Right so Tracey and I watched the second one together.
Sarah MacLean 17:52 / #
Tracey is a traitorous betrayer.
Jennifer Prokop 17:55 / #
Cuz I was like, I'm kind of obsessed with this. I really want to watch the next one. And I had never read the books. So it was all new to me. Meanwhile, the entire time I was like, Tracey, does this happen in the book? Tracey? Does this happen in the book? Because she was like, "I don't know". It's fine. But, I did secretly watch the second one. And then we watched it all together. But tonight, I'm going in cold on 50 Shades Freed. Is that what it was called?
Sarah MacLean 18:19 / #
Allegedly.
Jennifer Prokop 18:20 / #
What do you mean? allegedly?
Sarah MacLean 18:21 / #
Allegedly.
Jennifer Prokop 18:22 / #
Oh you think I'm lying.
Sarah MacLean 18:22 / #
You lied to me once before. How can I ever trust you when it comes E.L. James? Jamie Dornan and his weird leprechaun head?
Jennifer Prokop 18:32 / #
And his bow tie!
Sarah MacLean 18:34 / #
Ok! I'm gonna ruin 50 Shades Darker for you guys. You ready? The masquerade ball? which everybody knows I love a masquerade. I mean...come on now. Every romance, right? Oh, we should talk about masquerades and like the promise of the masquerade. We've never done that. And that's a fun conversation.
Jennifer Prokop 18:50 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 18:50 / #
But I'm gonna ruin it first. So the 50 Shades masquerade in the second book. Like it's sexy, right? He gives her mask and then they go to his parents' house and then they like, do a lot of naughty stuff in his parents house which, Alexis Daria, was not on board, nor was Adriana Herrera, not on board with it. Not Okay. Um, but mainly Adriana is not okay through...I would say 80%.
Jennifer Prokop 19:19 / #
Okay, except for the amazing scene where he flips her.
Sarah MacLean 19:22 / #
Oh, the flip. Forget it. It's real hot.
Jennifer Prokop 19:25 / #
I rewatched that several times. I was like, how is there no GIF of this. And then Adriana was like, "sorry, I'm behind! I had to go back and watch that flip a few times".
Sarah MacLean 19:31 / #
Yeah Adriana just peaced out of the watch from all of us. And like went back to rewatch the flip, which is great. I mean, I support your choices. Anyway, we're watching it. And the masquerade comes on and you guys, Christian's bow tie in this masquerade scene is like a baby's bow tie. It's like a child's bow tie. And I literally throw into text thread--We have an ongoing text thread-- we're watching this and like, why is his bow tie so tiny? And then I kind of ruined it for Tracey, because she'd never noticed.
Jennifer Prokop 20:07 / #
And then you can't not know.
Sarah MacLean 20:09 / #
Now once I've said that to you, you can't not notice it's just a tiny little bow tie.
Jennifer Prokop 20:13 / #
I'm gonna admit something too. So I love a masquerade scene in a book, but I'm always like, how do these mfer's not fucking recognize each other?
Sarah MacLean 20:22 / #
The have to know? Right?
Jennifer Prokop 20:23 / #
Right? They have to know. And then we are watching it with me and Tracey -- sorry -- and I was like, who is this blonde woman talking to Christian? Is it her friend and she's like, no, it's a sister. And I was like, God, reader me is like, "How do they not recognize each other?" Watcher me is like, "Who the fuck is this? Again? She's got a mask on. I don't know."
Sarah MacLean 20:40 / #
Everybody's in a mask. They're just invisible now. Yes, it's except, except the hero always knows who the heroine is.
Jennifer Prokop 20:49 / #
Sure.
Sarah MacLean 20:50 / #
I mean, always.
Jennifer Prokop 20:52 / #
Always.
Sarah MacLean 20:53 / #
Cuz that is... I get the most positive response to the first line in "Daring of the Duke" of the masquerade from his point of view, because I think the first line of that chapter is like, he knew it was her the moment she entered.
Jennifer Prokop 21:06 / #
Right. And she doesn't think he knows.
Sarah MacLean 21:08 / #
Right and cuz she's like, masked. she's wearing a wig. She's like masked. He's like, doesn't matter. No, he's like, I smell you. Like he smells her. Fated Fucking Mates.
Jennifer Prokop 21:18 / #
I was just saying it's like that old category where the guy can smell pregnant women. What was it? What was that one?
Sarah MacLean 21:28 / #
"Warrior"! You guys. I'm gonna reread "Warrior" this week.
Jennifer Prokop 21:33 / #
See? There you go.
Sarah MacLean 21:34 / #
Today, because he can smell women pregnant.
Jennifer Prokop 21:37 / #
He'd definitely know how to identify someone at a masquerade.
Sarah MacLean 21:40 / #
For romance reasons.
Jennifer Prokop 21:42 / #
Here's the other thing -- I was thinking about several things...
Sarah MacLean 21:46 / #
I would... wait, I'm sorry. I want to go back to "Warrior" for a second. Because Nevada --the hero of "Warrior" who can smell women pregnant-- Elizabeth Lowell does some real solid foreshadowing work. Jennifer. Um, was that this episode? No different episode.
Jennifer Prokop 22:03 / #
One day it'll makes sense. We're foreshadowing a future joke about foreshadowing.
Sarah MacLean 22:08 / #
So Elizabeth Lowell does some really great foreshadowing work because he smells pregnancy in like four books before that book. And then she's looking at her, at her notes on him. And she's like, oh, he smells pregnancy. So bam. I know how this is gonna go.
Jennifer Prokop 22:23 / #
Here's the thing about this masquerade scene though. Like, I'm not really a person to pay attention to continuity things... but, before the masquerade, Ana is dressed in some very lovely lingerie. It is truly beautiful. In fact, it only... you know it also remind me of? Season One of Deadwood. Remember when Alma finally gets it on with the--what's his name?
Sarah MacLean 22:46 / #
Crazy eyes. Timothy Olyphant.
Jennifer Prokop 22:47 / #
Yes. She is also wearing some beautiful undergarments. I remember really being like, wow, that is lovely. Do you remember that?
Sarah MacLean 22:54 / #
I don't remember it. But I'm gonna...
Jennifer Prokop 22:56 / #
Find it and I'll like,
Sarah MacLean 22:57 / #
It's a really nice corset.
Jennifer Prokop 22:59 / #
Yes, but it's like kind of black lace and it's very sheer.
Sarah MacLean 23:03 / #
It's mourning undergarments.
Jennifer Prokop 23:05 / #
Sure, sure. Anyway, Ana is wearing this beautiful lingerie, and then she puts on a dress and I was like, wait, you just took all that stuff off!
Sarah MacLean 23:15 / #
A silk dress. I mean the argument--did she take it off?
Jennifer Prokop 23:20 / #
She couldn't have been... literally the straps would have shown.
Sarah MacLean 23:22 / #
Here's my thing about that lingerie. She's all very put together. But she's wearing her garter belts over her undies, which is, I mean, how it looks really perfect. But the reality is, is that if you wear your garter belts over your undies, anytime you have to pee, have sex or have ben wa balls inserted into you. This is important. This is a PSA you guys. You have to undress yourself! I mean, clearly the fantasy is held during the 50 Shades film.
Jennifer Prokop 23:58 / #
Sorry, my seventeen year old just appeared at a real awkward time, but he couldn't hear what you were talking about.
Sarah MacLean 24:04 / #
"Hi!". I'm really glad he couldn't hear what I was talking about. "Hi, Little Romance!"
Little Romance 24:07 / #
I don't know what's happening. So I'm gonna leave now.
Jennifer Prokop 24:09 / #
Okay, bye.
Sarah MacLean 24:09 / #
"Okay, bye". Look at you. He brought you breakfast.
Jennifer Prokop 24:15 / #
Yeah, Mr. ReadsRomance went to Dunkin donuts.
Sarah MacLean 24:18 / #
Oh, I love a Dunkin'.
Jennifer Prokop 24:20 / #
Me too. Can we talk about masquerades? The promise of the premise. That's what we're going to do right now.
Sarah MacLean 24:25 / #
All right. So the promise of the premise of the masquerade. One is, they don't know who the other is. So this is early days in the book, right? Like, if it's in the first couple of chapters, then it has to be sort of like a mystery of who this person is. Although, I mean, I don't know. I'm thinking. So, wait. Are we talking masquerades themselves or the mask itself? Because I think about that, um, delicious Elizabeth Hoyt book. Did you read all those Elizabeth Hoyt books? The Prince books?
Jennifer Prokop 24:59 / #
I think so.
Sarah MacLean 25:00 / #
Tiger Prince, Raven Prince, Serpent Prince. The Raven Prince is the one where he goes to the sex club. And she meets him there. He's going as like a client and she goes and is wearing a mask and she is the sex worker. And she's masked -- but that's another example of she thinks he doesn't know who she is -- And he of course knows right away. Of course. FYI guys we had no intention. We were just going to get it. We just decided we were going to freewheel today. So here we are.
Jennifer Prokop 25:42 / #
Well, we started off with my RBG Halloween costume and we're back to costume. So I feel like it's all a closed circut. Okay, here's my question about masquerades. Do you think this is a historical only trope?
Sarah MacLean 25:56 / #
Well, I mean, it's in 50 Shades, which arguably is...
Jennifer Prokop 25:59 / #
Yeah, but I was like, but other than 50 Shades.
Sarah MacLean 26:01 / #
100 million copies. Were we not clear enough.
Jennifer Prokop 26:05 / #
Right? But they go together.
Sarah MacLean 26:07 / #
Right, because Christian Grey is so an old fashioned, right? He's basically like... What's his name? Rochester. PS Christian Grey would absolutely keep his old wife in the attic.
Jennifer Prokop 26:20 / #
Um, hello? Yes.
Jennifer Prokop 26:23 / #
Like in the book the whole part with like Leila, or no, the movie.
Sarah MacLean 26:28 / #
Yeah, the second book is like some serious Jane Eyre fanfic.
Jennifer Prokop 26:32 / #
For sure.
Sarah MacLean 26:33 / #
It's, you know, a big problem. Adriana...
Jennifer Prokop 26:37 / #
She about had a heart attack. She was like, "Wait, what?" Go back and watch that flip again. Skip over this.
Sarah MacLean 26:45 / #
We should publish the chats. We could make a fortune. Okay, the contemporary masquerades. I mean, there have got to be--It's such a classic trope. Right? Right. This is why we don't usually like truly prepare, but we usually say, oh, we're gonna do an episode on masquerades and then we at least think about it. Yeah, they have to. Everybody at home is like screaming titles at us right now. You know that, right?
Jennifer Prokop 27:16 / #
I do. That's fine. I feel like in some ways, the Naima Simone blackout ones function similarly.
Sarah MacLean 27:26 / #
Like galas, like balls, right. Like, that sort of feel. I mean, I just wrote... the "Naughty Brits" anthology and its connected by a gala, which I think gives it a real romancey feel... that anthology. I mean, I love an anthology. We're going to take a little detour. But I love an anthology that links together. We've talked about this on the podcast, like, I much prefer an anthology where, you know, either some kind of trope, or there's a similar thing, or like all of them interconnect. "Naughty Brits", all of the all of the episodes, all of the stories interconnect at a gala at the British Museum, but it's not a mask.
Jennifer Prokop 28:09 / #
So in a masquerade, it's the whole like, we're strangers to each other, but of course, he recognizes her. But in a modern one. I feel like it's the gala. And it has like that pretty woman effect of the the glow up?
Sarah MacLean 28:27 / #
Yeah, it's like a Cinderella story. You mean? Yeah, I think that's probably reasonable.
Jennifer Prokop 28:36 / #
And not just for women. I think for men, too, right. Like, Oh, my God, look at you and your three piece suit.
Sarah MacLean 28:42 / #
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. You know, I can't think short of 50 Shades. I can't really think of like a, a masquerade, romance, a contemporary masquerade romance. And I think that that's, I think that's probably... Oh, you know, who does it? It's not a masquerade though. So in Nikki Sloane's sex club books, the heroines are always the the walkers are always masked. So there's like a sense of
Jennifer Prokop 29:21 / #
They're blindfolded.
Sarah MacLean 29:23 / #
Oh, their blindfolded. So it's not masks. That's a different thing. I mean, the whole series is called, "The Blindfold Club". So as it is, well, I wonder why. I mean, I guess is it because it's too much fantasy? Because historicals allow, like, here's the thing about historicals is a mask on unlocks the characters right? Like, so where in a historical you're always writing this really fine line between what is allowed, like what we'll get like ruination is always on the table in a historical, I mean, maybe not always, but like 90% of historicals. Ruination is one of the like, the fears, right? This idea because we've talked 1000 times about like patriarchy and what historicals are doing around patriarchy. And the truth is ruination is fucking nonsense is what it is, right? And like, it's about women and sexuality and perception and the way society tries to keep women from pleasure. And it's all those things. And so ruination as a threat is just like always a low level kind of bubbling threat. So masks give us an opportunity. I mean, how many times have I said, I love an identity. What I love about romance is identity, always. And so masks like, there's the one piece which is playing with identity. But there's also that second piece that frees women from the binds and constraints of propriety, because if she's wearing a mask, no one knows who she is. So if she's, like, slutty in the garden.
Jennifer Prokop 31:05 / #
It doesn't matter.
Sarah MacLean 31:06 / #
Yeah. So it's a shorthand for sexual freedom. But also, but without removing patriarchy, right. So because once the mask comes off, like everything goes to shit.
Jennifer Prokop 31:20 / #
So I wonder if that's why it doesn't need to function the same way in a contemporary.
Sarah MacLean 31:24 / #
Because if women just have sex, and it's fine, right? I mean, I was doing. Yeah, so maybe it just doesn't have purpose.
Jennifer Prokop 31:34 / #
I think it's different, right. So in like I said,
Sarah MacLean 31:36 / #
I do love that moment, where he's like, where everyone's like, "Who's that?" And he's "That's my goddess".
Jennifer Prokop 31:45 / #
Right? Well, cuz he's the only one who knows her. He's literally bringing into our world she's never seen before. Right? And I do think that that's how galas often function because we have so many billionaire/millionaire heroes or whatever, right? And so often the woman's appearance into this world... It's not really about patriarchy, as much as it is about class.
Sarah MacLean 32:09 / #
Yes. In contemporaries. Yeah. It's usually it's either it's fish out of water, it's an awareness of like, a whole world that we haven't, that she has not had access to until now.
Jennifer Prokop 32:23 / #
Well, and I think so I think also the payoff is really different and or he? Yeah, sure. I'm thinking okay, so you and I both love Charlotte Stein. Right. And one of my favorite Charlotte Stein's -- and I'm gonna have to look because of course, god knows what the hell are, you know, are titles -- So hold on, while I look at this title, there's one I love, one of my favorites. And like, I feel like no one ever talks about it. But it is like absolutely one of my favorites. And I don't remember the title hold on its "Run to You" is the name of the book. And it starts off with a woman who she her roommate, she figures out essentially is doing these, like assignation she calls them. So she shows up in this hotel room, she doesn't really know what's going to happen. And it turns out that it's like, kind of like, this man's gonna be there. Right. And at the end, though, she falls in love with him. His name's Yanos like, I don't scand, I don't remember where he from. And at the end, though, he takes her he like takes her to the spa, and she gets the full treatment and she wears this whole gown. And he takes her to this ball and she thinks he's trying to change her. And she actually like sort of, she can't deal with it. She's like, I wanted him to want me for me. I didn't want him to like, make me over. And I thought it was a really clever play on the glow up right like instead of the Pretty Woman moment being like, yes, look, you can fit in anywhere. Is her saying I actually just wanted to I wanted you to love me for me. I didn't want you to have to make me something I'm not in order to fit in with your world. Of course it was all a misunderstanding. It was fine, but
Jennifer Prokop 34:14 / #
I did really like so I do. I think the gala and the ball is just different in a, in a modern romance. I think it has different stakes.
Sarah MacLean 34:22 / #
I think also that I do think you're right that I think that it's it's often about money. I think about that scene. In the Sylvia Day series helped me Help me the "Crossfire".
Jennifer Prokop 34:37 / #
"Crossfire". I was like the to you series.
Sarah MacLean 34:39 / #
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's that great scene, which is there's a scene in that series that's also at a gala or like a fundraiser, and they are sitting together and she is an and the dynamic is very much like he's a billionaire. She's not, She's like a young ingenue. And the they are having the moment at the table where there is a lot of like there's it's clear that like she is left out of the conversation or being manipulated in the conversation because she is not their kind, right? Like she's not their people. And it's a very class focused moment. And she uses her safe word at the table.
Jennifer Prokop 35:30 / #
Oh, wow, that's intense.
Sarah MacLean 35:31 / #
Have you read that book.
Jennifer Prokop 35:33 / #
I think I read the first one.
Sarah MacLean 35:34 / #
I don't know if it's the first one or the second one, somebody will tell us. But she's safe words him at the table during the conversation. And he instantly stops like, on a dime. And that and it's like, an incredible moment of like, power. And like this conversation around identity and power and, yeah, and how sex is more than just what happens between two people in private. Like, Yes, there is. It is a magnificent scene because of the way it balances power. And I think you're right, I think, you know, I think about um, you know, there are so in Lisa Kleypas in her contemporaries, and this is unsurprising, right? Like, Lisa is a historical Queen, right? Well, arguably the best of us in history. And so like when she right went, but when she came to her contemporaries, there were a lot of these like kind of Texan balls that happened, and like gave opportunities to have these conversations. What is interesting about this for me, though, is that it is so completely fantastical for most of us, like I always do every year, I make the same New Year's joke, right, which is I've been living in New York City for 20 years, and no one has ever invited me to a "When Harry Met Sally" style New Year's Eve party, like I have never been invited to have, you know, Eric run in the rain and say,
Movie Dialogue 37:12 / #
"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night."
Sarah MacLean 37:32 / #
I think that fantasy of it's really old fashion, there's like a comfort to it. There is Yeah, because readers, we sort of know what happens at a ball. Like we know that ball is where like gentle courtship, there's something soft about it, even when it's not soft.
Jennifer Prokop 37:49 / #
Well, I also think it's really embedded in like the Cinderella trope, which is so I think it's like impossible to get away from and I think, you know, like going off to the ball and the fairy godmother and then you know, being recognized for who you are, even though no one else can see that. I mean, that's a really powerfully built into, like our society. But I mean, there are Cinderella stories from all over the world right there. This is a story that humanity loves, not just Americans. I think it's also a very visual trope. Yeah. And what I mean by that is, I don't know you guys look at the mirror every morning and I'm like, whatever. You know, like, I mean, same. Like the ugly duckling turning into a swan like that's, I love that. Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 38:46 / #
You know, have you read Theodora Taylor, we read her books.
Jennifer Prokop 38:51 / #
One but I it was a I don't remember though. It was there was not a ball.
Sarah MacLean 38:56 / #
So first of all, these were recommended to me by Kenya Gauri Bell, who is amazing, um, who is like the most wonderful person. Yeah, possibly in romance. She's just a delight. Um, so Kenya and I were in Alabama together immediately before COVID like we did an event in in Alabama, and I did an event with Naima Simone and Kenya was there and we all went out and hung out and talked about romance novels. As you know, you do when you hang out with me. Um, and she recommended this book called Holt, which is written by Theodora Taylor, who in it's like, the series title is like ruthless billionaires or something. And it begins with the heroine turning up at like a skyscraper for a party like very interestingly, like very Naima. Yeah, like this kind of there is this like big party that's happening and she has like, no money at all to her name, and she gets to this party. And it's like, you know, our writhing mass of like people partying. And there is one man who like is above it all, and it's happening at his home. But he's like, kind of bored by it. And I think that's a piece of it, too. Like, this idea that like,
Jennifer Prokop 40:27 / #
I love that. I love it when they're bored of it.
Sarah MacLean 40:29 / #
The hero can have anything in the world, like he can literally it's going back to that it's it harkens back to that Nicki Sloane book that I love so much, right? Where he's like, I'm literally in that book, above it all, looking down, and he can point to the person he wants and say that person, and there are all these remarkable people in the room. But he chooses you. And he chooses you. This is the value of the mask, right? Like he chooses you with, or without the mask. Um, because he can see he can see you he can see all sides of you. So like, it's, it's a really like, and it is like it's exactly what it sounds like. It's like super alpha guy, like, you know, if this is your kink, this book will really work for you. Um, so, you know, but I think about, Oh God, who's that other woman who I love Jean O'Reilly. Is that her name? Have you read Jane O'Reilly ever?
Jennifer Prokop 41:42 / #
It's not Jane O'Reilly. It's,
Sarah MacLean 41:44 / #
You're thinking of Kathleen O'Reilly.
Jennifer Prokop 41:46 / #
I'm thinking Kathleen O'Reilly okay.
Sarah MacLean 41:47 / #
No, I'm not talking about that. I like Kathleen O'Reilly too. And when we do our bartender episode, yes. Okay, as everyone knows that, that's what I'm looking for right now. Um, we will talk about Kathleen O'Reilly because I do love those New York City bartender episodes, but no, hang on. I'm gonna look. Jane O'Reilly. It's true. She's English. And she wrote a book called.
Jennifer Prokop 42:13 / #
Oh, I've read that.
Sarah MacLean 42:15 / #
Yeah, it's not I mean, I recommend I don't think I've ever recommended on the podcast. This actually just became like, just a big, let's just talk about books. We like, fine episode, whatever, who cares?
Jennifer Prokop 42:25 / #
Um, this podcast is free. Everybody so.
Sarah MacLean 42:31 / #
Sorry. Um, so she wrote a book called The pressure plates principle, which is a novella. And it's like, part of again, like part of a series of novellas. But this is a similar thing where the heroine, Oh, God, I love it insecure and insecure about sex heroin, like, the heroin has some some bad I know, I understand that some of my things are deeply problematic, but like, I don't know, it's 2020 leave me alone. So but I love it when like so she said the heroine is coming off like this very bad relationship, where when she broke up with this guy who was terrible to her, he was basically like, you are terrible in bed. Like you suck at sex. And so she's like super insecure about sex. She's in like PR works for some PR company in England is set in England. It's contemporary. I think Jane O'Reilly is English. And the her like, outrageously sexy boss. Hosts these like bacchanals.
Jennifer Prokop 43:35 / #
Great. Great.
Sarah MacLean 43:40 / #
So she turns up at one of them and here we are bored hero. Tired of supermodels.
Jennifer Prokop 43:51 / #
I cannot get enough of that bullshit. I really cannot. It's a great.
Sarah MacLean 43:55 / #
And he's and she asks him for sex lessons. Like she's basically like, I'm bad at sex. And he's like, I feel confident that that is not the case. Never and then he's like, but yes, I will give you sex lessons. So it's like educational kissing, which is another trope we love and should do an episode about but like, again, like this sort of bored. I don't know. Why are we doing this today? I don't know. Why isn't this it's
Jennifer Prokop 44:22 / #
Where we are. Sarah, where we are.
Sarah MacLean 44:25 / #
You know why? Because I'm an insecure heroine right now. I'm like, I don't know. I want a bored. I want a bored person to just be like,
Jennifer Prokop 44:34 / #
Fix this. Like, yeah
Sarah MacLean 44:35 / #
I will teach you about sex. And also I see you and it's all gonna be okay.
Jennifer Prokop 44:41 / #
So, you know, this is a perfect opportunity to mention our favorite Derek Craven, who does not recognize Sarah when she comes to the masquerade.
Sarah MacLean 44:49 / #
No, dummy
Jennifer Prokop 44:52 / #
His factotum does danger you dummy. You know why? Cuz They think we just want the world to be different right now. I think it's perfect. I'm always looking for a way to make the metaphor work everybody sorry,
Sarah MacLean 45:06 / #
Shout out to every person who is selling witch romance is right now. Because there are which romance is like every two days. So for those of you who are not in publishing, there's this email list that you can get on you have to pay for it, but, and I, and it's called publishers lunch, and you get a email every day about the deals like the new publishing deals that are coming out. And for the last like, three months, it's just been like, witch series, after witch series, after witch series in romance and like, I am here for it. Oh, like, in a huge way, because I just feel like I don't, I don't want real life like I don't. I want to read historicals. I want to read paranormals. I want to read things where like, power. I want to read about power. Yes. I want to read about power, but I want to read about power.
Music Lyric 45:55 / #
I can break you will, I can make you kneel. I can force you to crawl and to lick my heels. Cause the power is mine. Power is mine.
Sarah MacLean 46:03 / #
Like where like men has to be like, broken down. Yeah. And I want that, because I want power redistribution in the world.
Jennifer Prokop 46:16 / #
Yeah, me too.
Sarah MacLean 46:19 / #
You know, RBG has that famous quote about like, people always ask her like, when will When will the supreme she be happy with the the way the Supreme Court is broken up? And she says when you're alive? Because there have been nine men on the court for so long. And nobody's ever questioned that. And it just feels like, that's how it should be.
Jennifer Prokop 46:40 / #
Maybe it's naviete, maybe it's just like the access we have to the world. But I've never thought the world was fair. But the way in which is so blatantly unfair now. Right. And the that feels, aggressive.
Sarah MacLean 47:00 / #
The other book I was thinking about this morning, and, you know, was night and Nalini Singh's "Slave to Sensation", which we've never talked about, because we spent so much time in the first season talking about paranormals that I write, like, we write, just have sort of, we've never talked at length about other paranormals. And we should, you know, probably rectify that this season. But like, the premise of slave to sensation, the heroine has emotions, right? And like, the universe that Nalini has created in that, in that book, is a universe where emotions are, are devalued. Like they like it's a weakness, um, which, I mean, it's like, it just feels like, that's real patriarchy. Right? And, yeah, but the hero actually, like, feeds on them, like he can. He gets sustenance from emotions. And so she's, you know, there, she's in hiding. And there's this real sense of, like, power just being so codified in that relationship, and how, how emotion how, like, emotions in women, and like, things that are considered to be softer and weaker, are actually incredible power. And I feel like that's where we are, you know, it's like that. It's that Rebecca Tracer books, you know, like, "Good and Mad", "Good and Mad". And, Mona Eltahaway's "The Seven Necessary Sins of Women and Girls", and it just feels like, anger is all we have now. Yeah. And I, I mean, I think they're, weirdly, we just talked about a bunch of romance novels that are not about women's anger, like they are about, you know, I don't know, sex deals and masquerades. But, but also, I think, like, maybe maybe they aren't, are about about maybe that's part of it, too, like that mask as like, we're all wearing masks all the time. And maybe it's time for us all to take them off and like show the world that we're furious.
Jennifer Prokop 49:09 / #
Like my fury, in my mid 40s is not as threatening, you know, I'm a white lady like, right? Like, I mean, I'm a school teacher. I mean, I just feel like the whole thing too, about like, who gets to be mad. Right, and how that madness is how your anger is perceived as threatening or not. I mean, it's also Rosh Hashanah. So Happy New Year to all of our listeners. And my friend Julie mentioned that she went to services last night, like on zoom or whatever, and that her Rabbi said, "despair is not a strategy". And I was like, that's really good for me to remember. Because it's like people, like people have fought to make the world better for a really long time.
Sarah MacLean 50:01 / #
Yep. So what do we do, Jen? What is a strategy? Call your senators? Yes. Even if you live in blue states, Jen and I live in blue states, I have two blue senators, they have both said like, but I mean, my senators are in line, but like, call your senators make sure they know that you are expecting them to fight with every fiber of their being, even if even though it feels like that is, I mean, we are despairing. If you live in a swing state in a place that has either one blue and one red senator or in a state where your senator, your red senator is up for reelection? Mm hmm. Call your senators. Um, you know, I think this is especially true in places like Maine, where like Susan Collins might win her seat back if she steps up here. So call your senators.
Jennifer Prokop 50:57 / #
If I think act blue reported last night that it was making money hand over fist for swing states and for campaigns, I think Arizona is going to be really important because the reelection there because essentially that Senator, whoever wins is going to get seated faster because of the way like that election is working. I can't remember the details like whatever.
Sarah MacLean 51:26 / #
Jon Favreau, who used worked for Barack Obama, a speechwriter runs on a PAC. I mean, I don't know if we call it a PAC. But it's a it's a fund. And it's called "Get Mitch or Die Trying". And we will put links to it in show notes. That is the pack that raised something like $10 million in three hours last night, because democrats are mad, people are fired up. So call your senators, also do what you can if you don't have money, because a lot of us don't, because it's real hard out here. And we are like, there's also a pandemic on and we understand the burden that that has caused on a lot of families. You can text bank, you can phone bank. Last night, I tried to get addresses from postcards to voters, and there was only one campaign that had addresses still. So I think a lot of people are doing now. So sign up, sign up, sign up for all that stuff. I actually have a text bank training this afternoon at two o'clock for Wisconsin. But you can sign up in individual states if you want to. If you are planning to vote by mail, vote early so that your vote is already counted. By the time the election comes.
Jennifer Prokop 52:42 / #
Well, Virginia had early voting start to speak and they've never seen lines like that. So I have to assume that voters are really motivated and we just need to stay that way like now is, now is the time right if you've been like saving your energy for the final stretch like it's the sprint now it's not a marathon any more.
Sarah MacLean 53:03 / #
Well, here Look, this is the possible gold, gold's lining silver line gold at what, what color is silver lining?
Jennifer Prokop 53:10 / #
So like Anna's dress up at the ball.
Sarah MacLean 53:14 / #
The lining is silver. But the silver, the possible silver lining here is look, we all know that Joe Biden is like, not the most exciting like a lot of us were hoping for someone else. But here we are. And Ginsburg, we have to like honor her legacy here. And like get fired up for the court, get fired up for the Senate, get fired up for the future. We are really, in get fired up for the those families on the border, and for black families across America and for women across America and Trans people across America. And stay try and do what you can to stay fired up for the next 40 whatever days. We are going to be here with you every step of the way. We are going to try and stay fired up we are going to try and keep let's try and keep each other fired up. Take care of yourselves and remember self care but you know also we got to push through.
Jennifer Prokop 54:20 / #
Yeah, the thing it was really funny and people the things that you find solace in besides reading romance like, Eric last night was like there's more of us than there are of them. That's why they need to cheat.
Sarah MacLean 54:32 / #
By the millions there are really literal millions more of us than there are of them.
Jennifer Prokop 54:36 / #
Yeah. And that is really important for me to remember I feel like one of the down, I mean social media is like so amazing my life in a lot of ways. I found all of you through social media but
Sarah MacLean 54:47 / #
I mean Tom Hardy as Sarah MacLean covers.
Jennifer Prokop 54:50 / #
Right it's really hard sometimes to not focus on the all the like those bad stories that bubble up but you know, most of us are out here like trying to do the right thing wearing our masks, we want to vote, we want to help the election. We want to like restore, we can have democracy, we want people to have their civil rights. And I just feel like that helps me. It helps me to remember that.
Sarah MacLean 55:13 / #
It's hard out here. But it is it is easier for us than it has been in the past for a lot of people. You know, I hold tight, I hold tight to President Obama saying like, it is better now than it was, like it is always better. And you know, watching the DNC it's clear, the President Obama is real mad. Yeah. And I'm glad for it. It's right. Um, but there is, but that's where we are.
Jennifer Prokop 55:44 / #
Yeah, I think one last thing I guess I want to say is like, cling to your personal happiness, wherever you find that. One thing that we say all the time in romance is that like, the past didn't need to be perfect that people found personal happiness, even in times of great struggle. That's like the cornerstone of the whole thing. But I feel like one of the things that we see all the time, right is when you know, people, you know, some of our fellow white ladies will say things like, well, how could so and so be happy back then. And I just feel like this is why you have to cling to your personal happiness now, right? Whatever it is in this world right now that is bringing you joy. That is a positive net effect good thing, and none of us should feel bad about those things, whatever they are, right. Like my friend, Ernie and his husband have their new baby this week. And he had a baby and the baby next were remote controlled for like scale. And I was like the baby so tiny. Joy, it's joy to joy.
Sarah MacLean 56:50 / #
Yeah, it is joy. And also you guys like, don't let Twitter get you down. If like, if you're happy about the James Bond casting, or the Juergen Klopp thread, or the video that Rex Chapman is that his name Rex Chapman, it posted today of like, whatever adorable animal thing. Like, you're allowed. You're allowed. We have to suck the joy out of out of everything. Right? To be able to power to keep going the fight. And it's, you know, I feel like there's that. Did you ever watch the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt that show?
Jennifer Prokop 57:34 / #
I'm a bad watcher Sarah?
Sarah MacLean 57:35 / #
I know you don't watch TV. Um, but anyway, so there's there is this comedy that was on for a little while. And it was, you know, kind of adorable. And she had this thing where she was like, you can do anything for 10 seconds, right? Like, I feel like we can do anything for 45 days. Yeah. And we'll tackle it on November 4.
Jennifer Prokop 57:56 / #
Yep. We will.
Sarah MacLean 57:58 / #
We'll have an episode on November 4. We will. That's what we can promise you. It will be here November 4. Yep. After that. Who knows? Cuz, Jen, Jen exhausts me. Um, all right. We love you guys.
Jennifer Prokop 58:16 / #
Be strong.
Sarah MacLean 58:17 / #
And yeah, we're here where we're thinking of you. We're really grateful for you. How about that? We you are keeping, you are keeping us going?
Jennifer Prokop 58:26 / #
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the thing. Again, I say it a lot like romance was such a solitary thing I loved and now it doesn't have to be and it is really amazing that that's how my world is now.
Sarah MacLean 58:43 / #
Yep. All right. This is Fated Mates. And what else you can find us at Fatedmates.net. There you can find all sorts of information about merch and transcripts and a link to the Spotify playlist of all the music that gets played during these episodes. We are produced by Eric Mortensen. Next week, we are reading Alicia Ries "Serving Pleaure", which is a book that gives both of us a whole lot of joy. Yes. And we hope it will give you a lot of joy to it is real sexy, and a great fun read for this week. So get on that.
Jennifer Prokop 59:30 / #
And we were all over the place. So tell us where you are. That's all.
Sarah MacLean 59:37 / #
I mean, this is the second week in a row we were all over the place. You understand that? Yeah. Adriana on Twitter, but Adriana texted us a GIF of the way she imagined our brains working during the "Heart of Blood and Ashes", episode. And it was not wrong. And we're kind of sorry.
Jennifer Prokop 59:58 / #
I'm not sorry about any of it.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:01 / #
You know, feels like in season three, we should be better at this.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:05 / #
Times are rough though, Sarah, I feel like you know, I? Well, one of the things I say at school a lot, is I'm always asking this question, right, which is like, what is really, I'm an English teacher right? So, it's like what is the most important thing right now is like how do I get kids engaging and reading and writing? Like everything else falls away? Like what is the core of your discipline? And I feel like, you know, the core of our discipline in this podcast is that we just fucking love these books so goddamn much that our brains are like, just neurons firing all the time.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:39 / #
I mean, to be honest, I think that you all kind of love these books, too. So yeah, I mean, they wouldn't still listen, we know they're listening. I can see the data.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:48 / #
I know you do love data. You do love data.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:50 / #
I must suck.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:51 / #
Eric. Eric sends us the data every week. And I just say things like, wow.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:59 / #
And I'm like, can you explain this curve? Yeah. So anyway, you guys we love you. Stay strong, as Elizabeth Warren would say "Fight Only Righteous Fights".
S02.17: Pegging Romance
It’s the start of a new year, Romance is on fire, and we all need a palate cleanser, so we’re doing it right, with the bonus episode that was an item in the Romance for RAICES auction, hosted by Love in Panels. The bidding didn’t go quite the way we expected but we are honestly thrilled, because we were a tiny part of raising $23,000 for refugee services and immigrant families on the border. Please donate early and often to RAICES and The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.
Please welcome friend of the pod, Sierra Simone, for our very special Pegging Episode (And thank you to the Pegging Collective for your generous donation, and for being wonderful listeners)!
Auspicious beginning, right? Don’t miss a single moment of our 2020 episodes — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast if you’re so inclined!
We’re back next week (WE PROMISE!) with Born in Ice, by none other than the queen herself, Nora Roberts. Read Born in Ice at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local indie.
Show Notes
Jen misquoted a famous scene in Chinatown; it's actually "my sister and my daughter." Yikes.
Pretty sure if you're fancasting us into this clip from Grease about the Pink Ladies, Sierra is Rizzo.
We've talked a lot about Sierra's books on the podcast, but it was on the Small Town Romance interstitial that Sarah joked all of Sierra's books take place in Menage County, Kansas. [14]: https://twitter.com/JenReadsRomance/status/1212092587114467329 The Romance for RAICES auction was the brainchild of Suzanne from Love in Panels and raised TWENTY THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS! You should definitely support her blog and patreon if you can. The crisis on the border is ongoing and getting worse. Please continue to support romance's teams at RAICES and The Young Center.
We were going to rickroll you by talking about Peggy Sue Got Married and pirate romances, but we're nice that way and didn't. FWIW, Jen still thinks the plot of Peggy Sue Got Married is haunting.
Sierra is also, of course, the founder, owner, and operator of [The Simone Scale][14], which does not include teabagging even, but has been, because she loves us, updated to include pegging. The image is on our website in show notes.
Everyone wants the right pegging playlist, and of course there's one on Spotify. What a world! Besides Ariana Grande's Dangerous Woman, we offer up for your consideration Back It Up, Boys by Peaches and Behind the Wheel by Depeche Mode.
Here are some Sierra Simone recommended [toys ][24]and [harnesses][25]. She says of the toys, "The small is VERY gently sized and some men may feel more comfortable with a toy is that isn’t a hyper-realistic reproduction of a cock." [24]: https://www.tantusinc.com/collections/dildos/products/silk-small [25]: https://www.myspare.com/product/joque
Elia Winters is a Fated Mates favorite, and we want to thank her for her help thinking through the implicatons for gender essentialism and cisnormativity in this discussion. Buy her books! Her latest Three For All has pegging.
Sierra mentioned "that law about gas expanding to fill a space" -- well, I phoned Jonathan, a friend who teaches chemistry, and he says that's called entropy or Boyles Law of Kinetic Molecular Theory. Learn more about it here from Professor Dave, a Jonathan-approved chemistry youtube instructor.
Samhain and Ellora's Cave (which was especially messy) were two earlier and now shuttered publishers of erotic romance.
Jen Porter wrote a great twitter thread about erotic romance and character development.
Sarah mentioned "the RITA entry window" and goddamn if that's not a bitter pill to swallow right now. She's sorry.
A little about what it means to be allosexual.
Check out Roan Parrish's short story A Good Old Fashioned Chanukah Pegging, starring Ginger and Christopher from Small Change.
Everyone knows you need a flared base on your butt plugs, or at least anyone who follows Jenny Nordbak knows.
Romance as sex ed is complicated, but Scarlteen is on the job, and Teen Vogue would never steer you wrong.
The Pegging Song that Adriana sent us from Twitter is amazing, and we want to thank @shutupaida for being so gracious about letting us play it during the podcast. Also, be sure to watch Big Mouth on Netflix, because she's writing for it now!
I guess Katee Robert isn't the only one staging elaborate scenes with her Barbie dolls.
The Rogue Anthologies are pretty great and there are quite a few of them.
Jen had to do a major "retcon" on this hero in the Tamsen Parker book in order to read it. It's fine, really.
Special thanks to our special guest Sierra Simone! You can find her on Instagram or Facebook. Read her New Camelot series, the first is American Queen! She also joined us on our MacRieve episode, and we talked about Priest, a book that blooded Sarah.
You can buy a Pegging the Patriarchy button and other Romancelandia buttons at stickers at Jen's shop run by her best friend Kelly, and Sarah's t-shirts and swag from Jordandene.
Next week, we'll be talking about Born in Ice by Nora Roberts! We mean it!
Much thanks to all the members of the Pegging Cabal for their amazing, generous donation, and for asking us to do this episode: E is reading, Jennifer, Stephanie Blackhart, Amanda, Kini, Melinda, Tempest Bonds, Michelle Boule, JS Lenore, Eve Pendle, and Isabel. Give them a follow, or maybe this related account, Is There Pegging? But whatever you do, don't make everyone think that something is wrong with Colin Firth. We hope you enjoyed the episode!
Check out the transcript.
Jen Prokop 0:39
I don't even have words right now but we do have a very special guest
she's been cursed by podcast fairies though.
Sarah MacLean 0:50
It may be like it may be at some sort of flu podcast
flu podcast. Oh, there you go
Sierra Simone 0:56
just as pegging itself takes multiple tries to get Alright, so to the pagan podcast
Jen Prokop 1:05
Well, there you go. I guess y'all know what we're talking about tonight.
Sarah MacLean 1:09
Everyone Sierra Simone is with us today. Hello
Sierra Simone 1:12
everyone you know
Jen Prokop 1:14
Sarah and I are not messing around and sometimes you just need to bring in an expert so on this faded mates Welcome everyone we have a very a very special episode. It's kind of like a Lifetime movie. If you remember those when you were a kid only like way more instructive?
Because
Unknown Speaker 1:32
we got help and support I said, see nothing like those Lifetime movie.
Sarah MacLean 1:40
Like, my sister is my mom.
Jen Prokop 1:50
But okay, sure.
Sarah MacLean 1:54
Okay, so we should talk about so yes. Welcome, everybody to faded mate. I'm Sarah McClain.
Jen Prokop 2:01
I'm generally romance
are we going in
Sarah MacLean 2:07
you and then if we have to introduce our
Unknown Speaker 2:08
guest, I mean, right.
Sarah MacLean 2:11
And then we are here today with Sarah Simone who everyone remembers from our McRib episode. Sarah, have you only been here for one episode?
Jen Prokop 2:19
No.
Sierra Simone 2:21
I think it's just been one. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm present.
Jen Prokop 2:26
We have to do everyone several.
We've recorded with her four times, but she's gonna only be on twice
Sierra Simone 2:36
but you only get to hear okay, but
Sarah MacLean 2:38
here's the deal. So this is well and we also we have a third one even we have a third lined up already. We already know you're coming back. Yo, it's like, Saturday Night Live where people get t shirts. People get gifts when they hit milestones like maybe when you hit five will send you like a
amazing
Sierra Simone 2:58
amazing
Sarah MacLean 3:06
Kansas.
Sierra Simone 3:08
It really is. I mean, I'm the mayor of Minaj. County, Kansas.
I don't know, but I'm the mayor of it.
Well, thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to be here. We're so happy to have you and
Sarah MacLean 3:25
so let's give a little background on where how this started. We so Suzanne over at Levin panels, who is fabulous, and was looking around in 2019 at the world and going like what the fuck is happening is that none of us could could really stop saying that, and I was paralyzed, but, but Suzanne decided that she was gonna put her good work into mobilizing romance to into a auction to benefit nonprofit organizations on the southern border of the United States working with displaced families, children who have been displaced or taken from their parents and other people who
Jen Prokop 4:15
are really going through it
Sarah MacLean 4:17
down there. And romance really delivered in a huge way. The auction was massive, I think bigger than Suzanne could have imagined. Oh, I think it raised like 15 or 20 grand It was a lot. Yeah, you guys did awesome. So thank you to everyone who donated time money. product to that. We Jen and I were really really excited to be able to donate an episode of fate of mates, by which we meant like you pick the topic.
Like, we'd like you to talk about the bridgeton series
episode on princesses.
Jen Prokop 5:04
Women with really nice shoes.
Sarah MacLean 5:09
You Joker's a group of you got together and you raise a shit ton of money. Thank you so, so much. And you called yourself the pegging cabal. We have your name, we're going to name you at the end of this episode with pride. And you won the auction and you asked us to do an episode on pegging. And after sort of a couple of non starter ideas like what if we do a whole episode of characters named Margaret or
Sierra Simone 5:42
totally forgot we're
Jen Prokop 5:43
gonna do that. I was like, we're gonna rickroll them.
Sarah MacLean 5:49
Pirate romance.
We decided to really get serious get down to business, so to speak, and we called in the dirtiest person we know
Sierra Simone 6:00
The owner, thank you operator
Sarah MacLean 6:01
and developer of the Simone scale tm.
Simone, like pegging on the small scale is like, slightly to the north of Darcy looking at.
Jen Prokop 6:17
Like, making a cup of tea with two tea bags. That's about how sexy it is in your world. Like, we're gonna need help.
Sierra Simone 6:25
I mean, also actual teabagging is on, but like,
Jen Prokop 6:31
but yes, like, we're
Sierra Simone 6:32
talking like real, real mild stuff for pegging. So I was like, yeah, hell yes, I'm here. Yeah. What
Unknown Speaker 6:38
do you mean you need an expert? What's wrong,
Jen Prokop 6:42
guys? Important point, Sarah tweet. I think I've done more research episodes I ever had for like, my advice.
Sarah MacLean 6:52
was like, I'm getting it together.
Sierra Simone 6:55
That wasn't real good week. Like I feel like our text thread that week was probably like top 10 texts. threads of all time. Okay.
Yeah, we found that playlist, the music playlist, which we will
Sarah MacLean 7:09
course link in show notes and also the peaches song is is is going to play over the course of this episode because
Jen Prokop 7:33
Is this the woman the woman on Twitter who has the pegging? Like new jingle you guys we found some amazing things we're gonna
Sarah MacLean 7:42
get to her she's amazing cuz she's given us permission to play the whole thing. But no, there's there's a peachy song that is like, frankly like meaning.
It also includes meatloaf I would do anything for love.
Jen Prokop 8:02
But I won't do that.
Sarah MacLean 8:15
There is like a three part dissertation on on the internet about Ariana Grande a having
Sierra Simone 8:23
to pegging Dangerous Woman don't know how
Unknown Speaker 8:29
to spend the money.
Unknown Speaker 8:33
completely focused.
Sierra Simone 8:36
It is the classic, dangerous woman.
Jen Prokop 8:41
I think my favorite song on that playlist though, is
Sarah MacLean 8:53
that Eric pops in and production. There's gonna be a lot of great music in this episode. We'll put it all in show notes.
Jen Prokop 9:00
I think also a lot of show notes are going to be like Jen was unable to Google that good luck.
Sarah MacLean 9:07
Jen does show notes at work.
Jen Prokop 9:10
We suggest the search terms x y&z been able to execute that search and keep my job.
See the gray zone is now radioactive.
Sierra Simone 9:27
Well the great thing about Sarah Nice job is that like, if we didn't do this research on our computers, really we'd be letting our job down. So solemn duty Yeah, to investigate every corner of pegging.
Yeah, that's what she said.
Sarah MacLean 9:45
There's no corners in pegging.
Sierra Simone 9:49
I've learned that. That's rule number
one. Corner.
Jen Prokop 9:56
No corners. It's real soft. Round. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 10:05
All right.
Jen Prokop 10:06
Okay, so real serious now, Sarah, I think we'd like Sierra to maybe define pegging for us for
Sarah MacLean 10:13
those of you who don't know, welcome to fate of me. Welcome to this episode.
Okay, good welcome. If this is your first faded mates episode, welcome to the deep end of the pool.
If you combine a series someones newsletter, Twitter account, Facebook, or
Unknown Speaker 10:45
Welcome
Jen Prokop 10:48
Welcome to the kiddie pool.
Unknown Speaker 10:52
perspective, time is a flat circle
Unknown Speaker 10:59
All right.
Jen Prokop 11:00
Sierra, tell us about what pegging is, that's your job. That's why we brought you do all the heavy lifting.
Sierra Simone 11:07
So, um, so this is something that when we were kind of formulating how we were going to talk about pegging in the episode, you know, we did do a little bit of discussion. So sort of the traditional definition of pegging has been penetrative sex, where the penetrating object is actually a toy like a strap on, and the toy is usually worn. And the receptive partner is a man and the active partner, the penetrating partner is a woman and that is, I would say the majority of the pegging you come across in romance, which is a woman wearing a strap on penetrating a man easily. But while we were talking, I think, Jen Was it you who talked to Ilia winters a little bit, I bow Yeah, kind of making sure that there is some inclusivity The definition and that, you know, acknowledging that there can be some biological essentialism and the way that we sort of talk about what pegging is and isn't, and making sure that you know, it's kind of for everyone.
Jen Prokop 12:14
I just want to say like, huge shout out to Elio, who like, was really gracious about taking our questions because we want it I mean, obviously, we're having a lot of fun with this episode, but we don't want to be offensive either. And, you know, it's like kind of this always this question now about gender essential ism. You know, obviously, there are women who do have penises, right? If she's using her own anatomy, is it? Is it pegging? Or is it just like fucking and really, one of the things that Ellie and I ended up talking about was the idea that like people, if, if, if people kind of self identify that the activity they're doing is pegging like than it is, and it's not really like are you know, people get to decide how to like, a sheet put it like deviate from sis normativity in whatever way they Want to. So although I think in the episode work in a really kind of stick to that standard definition, we do want to just sort of, like throw out there that like that. That's not the only way that like pegging works. It's sort of maybe a most common one at this point. But, you know, we fully anticipate that, like, these things are going to just like everything. You know, there's not like really, highly defined borders around it. Like this is an activity that like all people can enjoy in whatever way they want to about that. Yeah,
Sierra Simone 13:28
yes. I love that. And I think that I think that pegging and I hope this is the case that in romance pegging is going to start to expand as it's sort of drifted into the popular consciousness, the way we see it represented and romance will start to expand and kind of breathe into the corners of the room. You know, I kind of think of that, like, what's that science law about how gas will always fill the volume of the container and nice and I feel like I do. like this and romance and inclusivity they do do that. Like once people start bringing awareness of it into the conversation, then you do start to see these stories and narratives pop up that really expand and play with, like, what are the limits of what this can do. And I hope that's the case for pegging. Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 14:18
I think this is really an interesting question, because I think, I think that when we talk about pegging, we're talking about really flipping the script on what sex has traditionally like, is traditionally in like old school, you know, sis hat. romances were like, the penetrative experience is the masculine experience. And I think that that that the idea of normalization of pegging and this these kind of questions about like, how do we rewrite the script on sex so that there is more parity and experiences kind of more We're balanced across or maybe not even balanced, but it's about pleasure. It's about your own desire and your consent within a relationship. And to Missy to write the idea that you're sharing something that maybe is like a stretch for you or like a writer or something you're kind of interested or curious about together and that is also a way that people's relationships develop. And yes is a gift from erotica and from erotic romance. I mean, this has I think, part of the reason why pegging has become more a part of romance and truthfully, when we got this sort of call for this being the fate of mates episode that people wanted, we part of the reason why we felt like we needed an expert to come in and talk was because we wanted somebody who was really deeply connected to erotic romance, who writes erotic romance who understands
the world
of writing for erotic romance readers and who, unlike and somebody who is in in that world right now because it isn't it's a new This is a whole new world opening up from erotic romance I think so much about that really the conversation that we've had with adrionna we had with audrianna Herrera when she was here about like, romance is constantly now it feels like romance of 2019 2020 is pushing the walls down and sort of again like gas right expanding? Yes, you further space.
Sierra Simone 16:34
Well, and I think that that's such an astute observation that because it to me, and I'm not nearly the romance historian that you guys are but when I encountered a lot of sort of older pegging, like I would say around like 2004 to 2007 ish in like Sam handbooks and a Laura's cave books.
Jen Prokop 16:52
Um, it definitely happened
Sierra Simone 16:55
within a very specific BDSM sphere. There was a Definitely like a very certain paradigm that could allow for a man to be penetrated by a woman. And now I think that's completely not the case. And one of the reasons why is that I think it's such a valuable tool or method to explore what power and gender mean inside of a relationship, that it actually connects to a lot of conversations that we're having in 2019. And, you know, in the last few years, and so this idea that like it can move out from just being purely like a symbol of, I mean, almost dominance, like femme Dom culture, to being something that even like limitedly kinky people or not kinky people at all can experience and it can be used on the page as a as a seen as a chessboard for navigating some other bigger, deeper theme.
Jen Prokop 17:56
One of the things I think might be really interesting before we'd like to Talk about specific, like examples is one of the things I like. And I know Sarah, you and I've been like noodling around when we like sort of tried this. The first time is, when people talk about erotic romance, they often talk about, like how sex has to be a really integral part of the plot. Hmm. And one of the things and I and I think that's true, right, like they're the relationship gets, like sort of shown through like, the sexual evolution of their emotional relationship is like really shown through the evolution of their sexual relationship. Right, right. I think one of the other things that I'm I'm really moving towards is the idea that I'm really good. erotic romance, though is also about character development. Yeah. And so you get people really exploring who they are, as they explore, like, their sexual identity, whether and that happens, like with a partner or partners, right, yeah. And I think that that's something that It's really funny because for like a long time, I've kind of really struggled with that first definition of erotic romance like it felt right, but somehow not entirely right. And when I think about it instead is someone really saying, like, I want to explore something new with you. I am learning something new about myself through what we're doing together. I find that to be a really like, electrifying and exciting way of thinking about erotic romance. And I think it's also when I think about the best erotic romance, it's the ones that do that. And I think that that's why like pegging could then be like a really interesting kind of model for this because often it is like, it's not where a book starts, right. It's something that's going to happen later. And, and I think so I just think that's like a really interesting way of thinking about it that like, I don't know, it really makes sense to me. It's like something I feel like I really enjoy and I think Maybe I'll look it up Jennifer Porter on Twitter was maybe one of the people who first like got me thinking in this way and I will definitely try and dig up that thread because I, I really, it was like one of those things where I read it and I was like that I love that idea a lot.
Sarah MacLean 20:15
Well, and I think that that's such an important piece of the puzzle for erotic romance. Like I my biggest one of my biggest frustrations with the way we talk about romance novels in the world is that for so long, I mean, when I started writing Romance A decade ago, which feels like an eternity ago, and like I started reading romance before ebooks existed, like that's, that's kind of the frame of reference that we're talking about here. Right. So like, the most erotic romance at the time that was readily available that you could go to your local library and pick up was someone like Laura Lee right, who was writing a very specific kind of again, like sis heteronormative erotic romance that was not including these kind of these kind of kinks that now no longer feel as kinky, right? But so an interestingly and her and her heroes were completely impenetrable. That's what she said in both
Sierra Simone 21:25
episode we one done
Sarah MacLean 21:30
right, I'm never gonna be able to call a hero.
Jen Prokop 21:36
They all need to just understand that they're all penetrable. It's a better world that way.
Sarah MacLean 21:43
But my point being that
for a long time written my, when I started, there was this sort of sense that we didn't talk about the sex parts of the book like we as writers, as an industry. Kind of glossed over that for I think lots of reasons. But certainly the one of the damage, one of the most damaging parts of that silence about the sex parts was that we never really nailed down a solid definition of what it means to be erotic romance like Yeah, and I think we talked about this a little bit during the mcgroove episode where like, I there's still a question I still see people right now there's the Rita not the Rita entry. window is open, and people are like, well, if I had five sex scenes in my book, is that a contemporary is that erotic and it's like, well,
Jen Prokop 22:43
that's not the that shouldn't be. The crazy number is not that the number is not what's defined,
Sarah MacLean 22:50
but I think we're not look, romance is having a lot of very important conversations right now that need to be had but this is one that also needs to be had in service of This part of the genre, right? Because we should be able to talk about what the value of the erotic romance is. And I think you're right that it is about character. Evolution is through action in this particular way.
Sierra Simone 23:15
I love that idea of evolution through action. Like I think that's such an incredible, just sort of pithy tagline for it. And I want to acknowledge that, you know, we're the sphere in which we're talking about erotic romance is largely geared towards and representing Allah sexuals. And so just with that caveat, I do think that for Allah sexual people, meaning people who are just non Ace, or you know, naturally sexual beings, that sexual identity actually ties into some really super elemental parts of our identities that I think are hard to access and other ways. So like it can be profoundly vulnerable making it can be profoundly therapeutic. Or profoundly traumatizing or, you know, breaking you open to have powerful transformative sex. And so if you have an erotic romance where the It doesn't matter how many sex scenes you have, necessarily, but the sex scene itself is doing work by using sex as a as a gateway into this identity arc that the characters undergoing, I think that that is what makes a compelling erotic romance. And then I think the, a lot of that journey usually is coupled with sort of, I was raised or just sort of the overall culture created these ideas about sexuality inside of me. And so like some of that identity is usually kind of coming into your own and letting go of the harmful paradigms that society has given you. And I think with pegging in particular, that can have a lot to do with like, what is masculinity? Like? What is the matter masculine role in sex. And and I think we can acknowledge probably that there are there are some strains of homophobia right within talking about pegging and how men might feel about it.
Jen Prokop 25:15
If I could just like shout out like literally today, Rome parish dropped a little book in main bite, called a good old affection Hanukkah pegging. And it is a if you read small change, it's ginger and Christopher so these are like characters you kind of already know. But one of the things I really liked about this little and I mean, it's pretty short. I read it in a couple minutes is it starts off with Christopher talking to his friend, because he is like curious it his friend is gay and he's curious about like, Ginger has like wants to try pegging. Christopher is like I think I want to try it but he talks to his friend hearse Question is sort of like, does it hurt? Like, does it hurt to have something up your ass? Right? And the friend is kinda like Jude is like blinking, right? And, and he's like, and they and he's really interesting because he's, he'd like, go, it's I thought it was really great. Like, he's like, I need to go to a friend first who's experienced this to like, talk about, like, my questions and my fears. And you know, it's like, really funny because, like, one of the things he says is like, like, What's the situation? And I was like, You know what, I think that makes it I loved it. Like, I felt like, oh, like, that really is getting out. Like what I think a lot of people would have like, questions about the mechanics of it, and I just thought it anyway, it's like a terrific story. And it's really short and we'll link to it in show notes. But you know, that that whole idea of like him, you know, and and you can tell Jude his friend is like, you know, it doesn't make you gay and he's like, I I'm not trying to say that, like, I really am like, Is it going to hurt like, what do I do to prepare? How do I get ready?
Unknown Speaker 27:00
Right. You know,
Sarah MacLean 27:02
I think that's a really it brings up a whole separate batch of questions about romance in general and how well or not well, it prepares readers for sex. Yeah, right. I mean, I, I think, because I think a lot about the fact like, I think about anal and I think about how I had no idea like romance did not prepare me in any way to like, understand how anal works. Right, right. Oh, yeah. Right. So like, I think so i think that that kind of conversation in romance is really fresh and interesting and should happen more on the page. And, again, it's the place where erotic romance can be doing some really interesting and I think important work. Yeah, you know, the last time we this is the second time we've recorded this episode, because we had a little bit of a problem the first time and that day, I had just been to have an extra While I was sitting there, I was not discussing this episode with the X ray tech surprisingly. But the X ray tech while I was there was saying, Oh, we've had a really interesting day today because you know, your story is definitely the most boring story and somebody else would come in was younger a young man and he had a tube of mascara.
Sierra Simone 28:28
Oh no loss Oh, no,
Unknown Speaker 28:30
no, no
Unknown Speaker 28:31
No learn base everybody know that. Here's the thing, right? Like,
Sarah MacLean 28:36
that's a thing where like, okay, there's this is there's a lot going on, like his, the X ray text response was his mom was real pissed.
And
I can't imagine like I was like, well, it's probably worse for him. And truthfully, like this entire experience is going to be a terrible experience between him and his mom if they can't figure out a way to talk about it. But the reality is like who's was having how are we having these conversations? Like is it romances job to teach us? Like? There's some interesting questions here, right? Like, you know, it is not romance this job to teach us. But like, we don't want porn teaching us. So where do we learn? So I guess in this I mean, this is sort of a much bigger kind of academic and like parenting and you know, a traditional question, but
these
I'm really happy to hear about that conversation in Ron's book because
Jen Prokop 29:32
Yeah, right, exactly. Because I do think it's tricky. Like, I agree with you that this is not exactly it's not romances job to teach. But at the same time, I think it probably behooves at least most writers to know that many people are learning about sex through romance. Yeah. And like, that's like a real tricky thing. I will say I will put a link in show notes to a website that I just think is actually terrific. for teaching about sex, it's called Scarlett teen. And it is literally called, like sex ed for the real world. And it's really aimed at teenagers and like emerging adults, right, like young people, but I, I, I think anybody would benefit like, everything's really straightforward. It's pretty non judgmental. I think it does a pretty good job about addressing like, gender identity. It's not like gender essential, you know what I mean? It's not just like, this is what women are. And I so I do think that like, but I tell a lot of people about Scarlett teen and they're like, I've never heard of that before. And I don't know if I'm just lucky because I work in a school and I know the folks who teach sex ed, but there are resources out there that I think you know, if you're too embarrassed to talk to your kids about sex, like I will say, I know that it's like really hard, but I do think it's like a really important part of our job as parents sprite because
Otherwise you're in the ER
Unknown Speaker 31:03
Yeah.
Sierra Simone 31:04
Lost your $13 tube of mascara.
Jen Prokop 31:10
I mean, who knows how much of the bill is for that?
Sarah MacLean 31:14
Oh god no, but not in you know i'm i'm thrilled that there are resources like this but like also just PSA moms and dads out there listening like, you know talk to your kids about all kinds of sex. Oh yeah things that they might be getting into it's going to be horrifying but enjoy embarrassing them
Sierra Simone 31:36
I think there is a there is a corner of fiction that does sometimes get a little bit more into these things and that's fanfiction because I know I have read fanfiction that is a little bit more detail oriented because it's you know, maybe it's written by a young person who like actually googled how to peg the I know I've read some fanfiction that was really illuminating and taught me some things. And I think I actually think in 2019 there's actually a lot of permeability between fan fiction and romance right now. Sure, I think I think a lot of fan fiction readers have grown up to be romance readers because they've been trained by slash fig by you know, reading these alternate universes with their favorite characters falling in love. And so they just sort of naturally graduated into romance, but they expect the same diversity and the same sex positivity that they found in fanfiction, which is really like it's a breath of fresh air, I think.
Jen Prokop 32:40
Yeah, I think that's awesome. I guess I would just like one more thing I would like to turn to in terms of like, cuz I guess my, my, of the three of us, my child is the oldest so I've actually done some of this work. Like I mean, we all you should all you know, you'd be talking to your younger kids about all sorts of things about their rights to their body and all that kind of stuff, right? But, and I can put up like lots of like links and show notes about like, how to talk to your kids about sex and, but like one of the things to like, for me that's really worked and I tell people this is that I like very much like when I sit my son down and we're like talking about this stuff, like just him, like I say to him, I'm like, I get that you're embarrassed, and you don't have to say anything, just like listen to me. And then I like really make it clear. Like, I feel like this is part of my job as your parent like, I'm just doing my job right now. I'm not here to embarrass you. I'm not here to like horrify you I but this is stuff that's like really important to me, that you are that you know about consent that you are being careful that you are like watching out for your friends that you know these like warning signs of like when someone might be in a dangerous situation. right and i think that you know, it's it's something that I think of is like a real responsibilities. Like, you're not going to send your kid off to college without them knowing how to like, do their own laundry. So make sure they know how to like buy condoms, and, you know, like talk about sex. And the thing that I have told my son is over and over again is like, if you can't talk to your partner or like about what you want to do, if you can't say, like, this is what I want to try, this is what I want to do, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. Yeah, right like that. That to me is like, just like the baseline. Like you have to be able to talk to your partner. It's something you're doing together. And that to me, I think feels like you don't have to really get too into the weeds about that is but it's like, if you can't even talk about what you want to do, then maybe you're not ready to actually try doing it.
Sierra Simone 34:44
You know, I think that that actually ties really well into pegging because I think pegging is one of the acts that requires a huge amount of communication. Because if you are penetrating someone with a toy like you yourself are not having a whole lot of Like biofeedback. So what is happening inside their body? And so there's just there's no way to do it without actively communicating as you go along, like you communicate before, like, you know, just basic things like what's the weather today? Like? Is it good about weather? Is it bad weather? Like? It's like a tornado warning then like, we're not going in, but, but then it's like a constant process of communicating throughout and then after, as well to say, like, how did that feel? Was that okay? And there's just, I mean, I don't think I've ever read a pegging scene where there hasn't been some degree of communication, because I think that if you wrote something like that, it would actually be really uncomfortable like emotionally to read because it's such a, it's it just requires that in this it necessitates it.
Jen Prokop 35:56
So do we want to talk about some actual books?
Sarah MacLean 35:59
Well, actually, I want to talk About my book, if if I can go first. Um, so I was thinking I'm, I'm just really, I'm really drawn to what you both are saying about, you know, one being mature enough to be able to ask for what you want. And with, you know, with purpose and with an understanding of your own your own ability to want and, and behave in a certain way but also in this sort of sense that like trust that I'm really interested in the trust that is implicit in asking for in broaching the topic with your partner. Yeah. Because it feels like once you're actually like, in the sheets, like
you've, you've come over the
most impressive hurdle, which is like asking for it right, which is hard. Right? All right. This feels dirty, by the way. Like I feel like every word coming out of my mouth
Jen Prokop 37:00
We're gonna get we're giving the people, Sarah.
Unknown Speaker 37:04
I know.
Sarah MacLean 37:05
So
anyway,
I so anyway, my point is that I think this this issue of trust in conversation with your partner the ability to say, I want this thing I want this thing that's kinky or not kinky or whatever in our relationship and frankly, I mean sexual or otherwise, is a massive hurdle for a relationship, especially in the beginning. And I mean, especially when it comes to sex like, which is awkward and weird and funny and stupid and all those things all right, it's never as perfect as it's certainly not the beginning ever as perfect as it is to pick a page. And so my pick for this is aelia winters. I mean, it feels like she keeps coming back, but winters winters is tied score, which is the second book in her slices of pie series, which follows. It's basically an erotic series focused and centered around gaming company. But in this particular you don't have to
the heroine of this book is
the HR person at this gaming company. And here is a baker.
And we all know I love the baker.
And basically like she goes in to the bakery every morning, I really love the way this flips the script. There are a lot there are a lot of romances where like the businessman hero gets his coffee every day from right like everything about this book kind of turns these, like classic tropes on their head. But he goes into she goes into his bakery every day and she buys coffee every day and they sort of make eyes at each other and they were kind of into each other and then like suddenly they're you know, they're into each other and She is a it's a little BDSM she is in them in, she likes scenes, she likes to be a DOM. And and he has a submissive streak that he knows he has but hasn't like thoroughly explored. And I really like as you all know, like I really like this dynamic with the with the heroine as DOM. So this I knew going in like I picked up this book because I knew going in this was going to scratch an itch for me that you don't see very much but in this particular case, um she's also like she knows she's, there's nothing about this that feels prescribed in the way that erotic romance can often produce a DOM and a submissive where it's like everyone knows their own rules. Everyone knows like exactly how everything goes Dom's know everything is perfect in every way. That's just not how this goes and it lovely And there's this
moment about
halfway through the book and I think about the fact I think it was Eugen who said, like pegging doesn't happen on page one like it. Yeah, it's an act that comes out later.
Jen Prokop 40:12
Meanwhile, I said that and I'm an ally when I talk about mine, but it's gonna be okay. That's like exception that proves the rule. Exactly.
Unknown Speaker 40:20
So
Sarah MacLean 40:20
there's, they go into the two of them together, go into a sex, like a sex shop. And the woman behind the counter is like, very friendly. And she's like, welcome. And he turns to the hero turns to the heroine and says, What did you have in mind and I sort of, it feels it all feels very light. There's this new sex shop in our neighborhood that like where there's nothing like the windows are all like open to the street and like it feels like a revelation to go in there. It doesn't feel secret or sword in any way. And I like that about this representation on the in the book. That's sort of an aside. And she says, The heroine says, I thought,
um,
maybe a harness.
Like ellipses in the sentence like it's clear that she feels we're in his POV right so we can't see when we can't see what she's thinking. But like it's so clear that she's like, I know what I want but I feel weird saying it to you like I don't I'm not sure how this is going to go I'm not sure that you'll have me after this like I'm not sure we'll be in the same place anymore. I could be fucking up
and then he says
that sounds fun is it's like to try and then he touches her but just like with one finger like he just like runs a finger down her spine. And she says Yeah, I think so if your game and he says and then he bends down is like super sexy and is like, you want to peg me, Miss Parker and like it's This moment where you're like they're having this like hot, consensual moment, and it's filled with like her. And it begins with her uncertainty with like, yeah, her not being like the perfect DOM and not being able to read like, being in a place that's very authentic and real. It felt like to me. Yeah, that's awesome. Anyway, the rest of the pegging scene is great. All this is to say, like, the rest of the book is fabulous. The pegging scene is great. It's super hot. ilias really, incredibly skilled at this. And, you know, you've heard us talk about early on the podcast before, so I don't have to oversell but I wanted to really, you all said that in it. I just I found that moments. So real. So great. Great.
Jen Prokop 42:48
Yeah. Just a quick shout out. Her latest book three for all also has a pegging scene.
Sierra Simone 42:55
Oh,
Sarah MacLean 42:56
I also think I'm not gonna a good time to break are a person on Twitter who
peg someone in a different way through song?
Jen Prokop 43:15
It's honestly I feel like the most brilliant thing I've ever heard at
least at times when you are the one who like reached out, and we're like hello
Sarah MacLean 43:29
King delighted by it. Her name is Aida. And she is awesome. She's hilariously funny her Twitter handle is shut up Aida. And actually just recently she announced that she has a new job she's joined the writers room at Big Mouth the the the animated show on Netflix that is about teenagers going through puberty, which I think is like the most I'm wild about this show. It's awkward and weird and it's exactly the right representation of what puberty feels. Like, so congratulations to Ada for this but
more importantly, she is the creator
of and we will post this tweet and we will put the music in right now.
Unknown Speaker 44:19
Real quick. No, it's not gay bro. I'm just having fun, bro. I just wanna stick. But bro, I'm being truthful and make yourself visible and let me just imagine a
Unknown Speaker 44:29
bag. I got a strap.
Unknown Speaker 44:30
I gotta press pay for your ass. Hey, I've got a question to ask.
Unknown Speaker 44:35
Do you get your booty in
Unknown Speaker 44:36
the air? Maybe we could do each other's hands stop being homophobic and benya as over it's not like your homies are here. And to be clear, I know you would love it.
Unknown Speaker 44:49
You got a big
Sarah MacLean 45:03
The tweet reads unnormalized pegging at all costs
fucking fabulous rap.
And with that she had that she wrote in like a heartbeat. And my favorite line of it is, uh, I got a strap. I got a fresh peg for your ass. I got a question to ask. Do you see with your booty in the air? Maybe when we're finished, we can do each other's hair.
Jen Prokop 45:36
Anyway, let's feel blessed everybody. It's great.
Sarah MacLean 45:38
You guys my favorite song. My favorite song.
Jen Prokop 45:42
It's amazing. It really is.
Sarah MacLean 45:44
What's important here is that we all get to the point where we've asked, and that's right. enthusiastic verbal vocal consent.
Jen Prokop 45:52
There you go.
Why don't you go next, Sarah?
Sierra Simone 45:57
Yes. Okay. I My book this time is learned my lesson by Katie Roberts. And this is part of her wicked villains series. Which, if you're not on Instagram obsessively following her staging her sex scenes with Barbie dolls, then you should be. But this series follows different Disney villains and sort of kind of alternate universe. They're all in the same city, kind of squaring off against each other. And learn my lesson is about Hades, Hercules and Meg. And it kind of starts out with so Hades owns a kink club. And in in owning this kink club, he's kind of got control over the entire city. His King club is the only neutral ground in this city. And he has information on everyone and Megan's really his His right hand person like she's his submissive, but she's also a switch in the club. And she manages the day to day running of the club like she is as much the mistress of it as he is the master. But at the beginning of the book, they kind of start out in this sort of marriage and trouble place. So they've been together for you know, long time, like 10 years. And something shifted in Hades, right? And like Megan's really feeling like something's changed between them. And so the book opens there at a restaurant and it's supposed to be kind of like a nice dinner date, but it's not going that well. And then this waiter walks in, and he's just like six foot five of like, golden puppy muscle boy. And Hades is like, I want you to seduce him. And you find out later that like Hades has sort of like revenge reasons for wanting this thing to happen. But what happens between Meg and Hercules ends up being Super genuine. And then Hades and Hercules end up having this really genuine connection. And Hayes is definitely like the slither in hero who's anti hero who's kind of bent on revenge who's like, I love zero things. And then by the end of the book, he's like, Damn, and I love two things I'm
Unknown Speaker 48:16
supposed to.
Jen Prokop 48:23
Perfect. So great.
Sierra Simone 48:26
There's a really beautiful pegging scene that were made pigs Hercules while he is, is getting oral sex to Hades.
And what I love
about it is it's everything that I want out of the pegging scene, right, like there's sort of this flip of gender and who's the passive partner and all this stuff. But I also really love I don't want to say how casual It is like, because there is consent involved and there is like, planning and emotional preparation, but it's just a given the Hercules' would be open to this kind of thing. And so it really, it almost makes the default as it should be, which is that there's no stigma attached. You know, in this world that Katie is created, there is no stigma to what we want and what we need to do for ourselves in bed. And so it happens and it's this really like, coalescing scene between the three of them, like it's really the scene where you begin to see like what they could be as a threesome. And not just as an antihero, a puppet and his, you know, like, jaded submissive. And I love the whole book, and I love all the books in the series and she has more books in the series coming out. I think the next one is going to be hook and Tinkerbell. So if you're into that kind of thing, I think that's coming in late, like late winter, like early 2020.
Unknown Speaker 49:56
There you go. Keeping
Unknown Speaker 49:59
Yeah. Um,
Jen Prokop 50:00
that's really interesting because I think that it sounds like we have all found like really different like pegging examples I am going to talk about, and I'm going to preface this by saying it was written right after the election in 2016. And it has a plot that I think, like the most ridiculous part of the plot. The hardest thing to believe is not the pegging on the first date. That is easy to believe it's that this is a love story between a democrat and a Republican. Which I know and I hate myself for recommending it but I feel like I love it so much but I feel like four years ago even it kind of felt like this was a plot that could happen. He really he at the end the republican completely gives it up he like he
quits the party he understand is wrong, but Still, like I don't even know he
Sarah MacLean 51:02
legit pegs the patriarchy is what you're saying.
Jen Prokop 51:07
Yeah, it's
called life, liberty and worship by Tamsin Parker. And it was in the first rogue anthology. So it's called broke desire. And I'm going to guess that if Tamsin was writing this right now, she would write it about like, a Democrat and then like, I thought about voting for Bernie for five minutes. But didn't actually do it like, right anyway.
I voted for George, local. You know, like, when I was eight, in my local school board election, there was only one republican running. So I had
three or four years like a lot of changes what I'm trying to tell you anyway, so here's it's a great, it's a great book if we can just like read Gone away. That one part of it. So, Paige is goes every like, you know, however often to like a spinning class and the guy in front of her, she like thinks he's really cute but she notices that he wears these sort of like political t shirts and she just and then he like gets all sweaty and takes them off and she's like, Oh, I hate this guy. And but he of course it turns out is just like one of those like, sad boys who doesn't want to talk to anybody. And so he finally like sort of, you know, get up the gumption to like ask her out. But unfortunately for him he does it after she sort of overhears like another guy like being real Brody and saying something stupid and and she is just like, fine. I'll go out with you like, come to my come to like this address at 10 o'clock. And in the meantime, she actually is sort of figured out That he writes policy papers for you know, like some sort of competing, whatever wonky thing and she like does respect the way he thinks like even though she doesn't quite agree with his politics because at one time and the school board election he voted Republican. She She liked it so he like shows up and she's basically like, he's like, What's your name? And she's like, you can find out after I have my way with you and basically like, brandishes this her harness, I mean, like, and he it's really amazing. She basically thinks she's gonna like, scare him away. And it's like, the greatest line in this book is he's like,
I've never done this book.
She's, you know, she's like, and she's like, what, fuck the Democrat.
But the thing is, is that she is she takes the response. ability of like penetrating him, like of pegging him really seriously, right. So even though she's, like, furious at him, and really does almost view this as like an act of revenge in some ways for what she thinks he stands for, she is still so careful with him. And she is and he and she's really surprised that he goes for it. She's like, wait, I thought you'd essentially like run, you know, run away. And they, she, like fucks up and basically kicks him out the door. You know, it ends up being like a really like for his show. You know, sometimes I'm just really amazed at what a great author can do with a short amount of time, right. And so, in this case, one of the things I think we really get is, you know, we talked about like, trust a lot right so far and like the other books that you guys have talked about, but pegging is also about power. And I think that's something that page really knows but it Not a power that she takes lightly and she doesn't like cross her like emotional feelings of anger disappointed with him and his kind of what she thinks he stands for, with like the, the very careful like power kind of and responsibility she she has with him in the bedroom. So I think it's like a really interesting one because because there isn't that emotional, or like trust there. It really is like sort of more of a of an act where she's like, I, this is what I want to do. And he's like, yeah, I kind of want you to do it too. But I think it's really hot. I think it's real sexy. And I think it's ultimately she is able after the physical act of begging him to sort of emotionally when they sort of eventually do kind of come clean. Like really say to him like I could never be with someone who believes the things that you believe and he has really has to face like, okay, the republican party I grew up in when I voted in the school board election. No like, right?
It's not
like what I stand for either, right? I mean, he's pro choice and he and he really has to sort of face like, Oh, I this this has changed and and you're right. And so he basically agrees to do the right thing and come over to the side of rightness and goodness and pegging.
Sierra Simone 56:30
We have pegging nice, you know, I really love but that's
I really love that this is your choice because I feel like it more maybe more than Sarah and I as pics represents, like where pegging can go in romance, like outside of like latex and safe words and you know, like, really intentional power structures that are built ahead of time. Like I think that it can represent like that picking can end up being kind of like how anal play is now where it used to be really restricted where you would find anything about the butt. And now, I mean, I sometimes I'm even kind of surprised when it doesn't come up in some contemporary romances as at least like a thing that someone's thinking about. Right? And so I hope that I mean, I really hope that like this is kind of a good bellwether of like, where we can go with it. We can use it as a metaphor as shorthand, but we can also use it as like, spontaneous you know, first aid sex. Yeah.
Love that. I'd be a hell of a first date.
Unknown Speaker 57:39
very memorable.
Sarah MacLean 57:46
That would be a fun thing to try on Tinder. Like just
Unknown Speaker 57:49
we like
Sarah MacLean 57:51
surely swipe right if I will, if I can pay you on the first day.
Jen Prokop 57:57
Yeah, I mean, it would sell you lucked out. Hello. Man, you would lose a lot of Yeah, stinkers.
Sierra Simone 58:04
A lot of stinkers. I mean
Jen Prokop 58:09
you said stinkers.
Sierra Simone 58:13
We need to do you know how we did like the last limb count for ID it's like, we need to have the unintentional pun. count for Sarah.
Unknown Speaker 58:31
Sarah,
Sierra Simone 58:33
yeah, don't don't make a sale.
Jen Prokop 58:38
As we like wrap up, I would like to tell you one of the greatest Twitter accounts ever to be created is at is there pegging? And if a book has pegging in it, they will retweet it.
Sarah MacLean 58:52
So girls,
Sierra Simone 58:52
yeah.
Jen Prokop 58:56
I don't know.
But based on the followers, I know it seems highly likely that someone we know
Sarah MacLean 59:07
guys
doing the Lord's work out here.
Jen Prokop 59:12
That's right now I have got to say it was my job to like list the names of the Peggy and Caldwell and I forgot to get it. I you know, it's like notes I had when we first recorded a month ago. So I think we'll have to put it in show notes, but I do know that like, the person I communicated with, is he is reading and she is famous actually in the past month for freaking out everyone on the fucking internet by getting Colin Firth trending. Remember that? She posted? Like, like, you know, which what's your age? And which, which Darcy Do you like, and all of a sudden, like 50,000 people or something answered her tweet, and everybody else was like, why is Colin Firth trending because they thought he was dead. And I was like, you need to like use your powers for good and not evil. So,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:07
here we are. And here Here we are, here we are.
Jen Prokop 1:00:15
Any last thoughts on
pegging? Before we wrap up this very special episode?
Sarah MacLean 1:00:20
You know what, I'm just going to say that I, I'm always so fucking delighted when Sierra joins us, even though it feels it feels only been once before. It feels like it's been a lot, but it's just been once before. So if you have not, if you skip the first season, or you skip reading ID, I highly, highly recommend you listening to the mcgroove episode of this podcast is not just I mean, you'll learn the plot of margrave which is banana.
But also, there's a lot of
really thoughtful conversation about erotic romance. And there were Sierra I think both of our minds a little bit.
Jen Prokop 1:01:02
Oh my god. Yes. Well, and before Sierra goes to wait, I know I'm not sure if you're going to say this, but I'm pretty sure that she has written a book with pegging. And I was hoping he would end up by
like, talking about your book or giving you a chance to talk about your book too. I mean, hell I'm
Sierra Simone 1:01:20
I'm just such a I'm like such a retiring like shrinking violet.
Jen Prokop 1:01:26
Special guest who has written about this in her books, and somehow she is not doing the right thing by telling us about it. So that's where we're going to like, make sure we go before Well,
Sierra Simone 1:01:35
I didn't want to horn in or maybe I do, maybe morning.
Jen Prokop 1:01:42
I was like, Oh, yeah, he does spam.
Sierra Simone 1:01:51
Yes. So if you are interested in reading any of my books, or reading about pegging or reading and pegging Sienna I have novella called the moon, and it is a very kind of broody, sexy contemporary retelling of Merlin and then way and I know Jen is probably making a face right now. So, I love Even I promise even of Merlin. I love you too. Even if Merlin's not your thing, that's totally okay. Um, but it is. It's a really sort of, I really kind of wanted to explore sort of like, what a spiritual kind of feeling that pegging could generate. So, I use the the pegging scene between the two of them as sort of this final act of like, complete elemental joining, I guess between them. And I think that it's a lot of fun. But if, like, you know, magic and pegging aren't your thing I totally understand. But yes, that is called the
Sarah MacLean 1:02:59
moon. And it's a In the world of the new Camelot series
Sierra Simone 1:03:02
Yes, so I wrote a series called New Camelot. It's a trilogy and it is a contemporary retelling of Are there going to be are and Lancelot. But everyone's in love with each other, and they all have lots of like very angsty sighs amazing. And the moon takes place after the trilogy, but you don't need to read the trilogy. To understand what happens in the moon. It can it can stand on its own.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:27
Got it. And then I just want to say and you know, you can plug your ears if you want here. But if you are new to the podcast this week, and you are a car fan, we did a deep dive read of priest, we will link to that in show notes as well. Don't miss it. We love it. It is one of the transformational texts of the genre. According to me, Oh, stop.
Sierra Simone 1:03:53
So I'm plugging my ears. Now. I'm plugging, I'm plugging.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:58
There's another one.
Jen Prokop 1:04:00
Got it, man.
They got us we got to squeeze them all in before they got
Sarah MacLean 1:04:09
as much as possible.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:12
So there it is. All right. Yeah, picking that was great. That's
Unknown Speaker 1:04:17
what she said,
Sarah MacLean 1:04:19
Where can people find you online after they've decided they love
Sierra Simone 1:04:23
you?
Jen Prokop 1:04:25
And they want to read everything you've ever written?
Sierra Simone 1:04:27
Yes, you can find me on Instagram as the car Simone or on
facebook.com slash the car Simone. And then also I have a Facebook group,
which is pretty awesome. And there's a lot of people who like kind of the dirty books in there. So if that describes us, and that might be a group of people that you would like to talk about 30 books with. And I have a Twitter but I don't go on to twitter.com so don't tweet me because I
Unknown Speaker 1:04:58
guess it's just good.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:01
Yeah, it's just good. Thank you. As always we are already as I mentioned earlier in the podcast we already have a plan for Sears third Oh yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:13
Third time's a charm. Oh god.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:19
Jen what else we have
Unknown Speaker 1:05:20
to say? Please remember to
Sarah MacLean 1:05:22
like and subscribe if you're new to the podcast and you really enjoyed this this is what it's like every week. I mean not always with Sarah but with
you can subscribe and like and leave a review if you feel so inclined.
We you get buttons and other fun things
Jen Prokop 1:05:42
and there is a pegging the patriarchy button actually. And it comes it's like round and then there's like a little like side button. That's just a carrot.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:50
Yes. Yes. There's
Sierra Simone 1:05:52
like a little tiny button that goes with it. This a little carrot and sort of like the
Unknown Speaker 1:05:57
secret
Jen Prokop 1:06:00
Yeah, we could all wear it at like kiss
Sarah MacLean 1:06:02
cons in rW ways and really show and we would know.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:07
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:09
So you can do that through Jen's website links and show notes. You can buy
some gear, romance gear t shirts, and other things from my partnership with Jordan Denae links and show notes more to come in the new year in February. So coming soon, a much bigger collection. Our producer is Eric Mortensen.
Jen Prokop 1:06:30
Don't forget to vote the right way and all of your upcoming elections whether they be for the local school board or for you know, the future of American democracy. Share
Unknown Speaker 1:06:41
that to
Jen Prokop 1:06:48
2020 all we gotta do is
Unknown Speaker 1:06:49
vote every election year guys we're
Sarah MacLean 1:06:51
in. Oh my god.
This year's gonna be 40,000 years long.
Jen Prokop 1:07:01
All right, everybody have a good one
Sarah MacLean 1:07:02
you all so much?
Sierra Simone 1:07:12
Real quick
Unknown Speaker 1:07:21
let me maybe
Unknown Speaker 1:07:33
stop being homophobic and benya
Unknown Speaker 1:07:38
No, you wouldn't love it.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:46
Let me show me
Elizabeth (Voicemail) 1:08:14
Hi, this is Elizabeth, aka is reading can remember the pegging crew. I wish I was sure which one was my first romance. It was so long ago. I think it was either seadrill by Penelope nary Dark of the Moon by Karen robarge. But beloved rogue by Penelope Williamson.
What I am sure is that it was hella problematic and would not hold up to now.
So, the more as to why we asked for this to be this episode to be tagging, I've talked a lot with the members of the peddling crew about why we're so interested in things enrollment. And I think is one of the goals of writing or and or reading romance is to dismantle the patriarchy, there is no clearer metaphor for that then tagging, as per the button taking the patriarchy. And this is sort of a way of undoing all that problematic. text that we read when we were younger, especially those of us who Kingdom romance in the 80s and 90s. Like Ilana, and Broad City says, things have been terrible for women up to and including today. And 2019 has definitely been for me the year of misogyny fatigue along with a lot of other fatigue. romance provides a safe space for fantasy and wish fulfillment. And I think that heading is something that a lot of women can relate to right now in
in not never avenge sense but in a way of taking back power.
I hope that makes sense. And that will and thank you for recording this episode for us and with you guys for doing this. Thank you
8: Triggering the Chastity Clause: Pleasure of a Dark Prince
We’re back with the werewolves this week, with one of our very favorite books in the series, Pleasures of a Dark Prince, featuring Garreth MacRieve and Lucia the Huntress, a Valkyrie who is burning it all down.
This episode, we’re discussing the way this book wraps up the first movement of IAD and preps readers for what’s to come (SPOILER: IT’S TORTURE ISLAND), we get into how the books are becoming more political, we update the lost-limb count, begin Lothaire-Watch, and dig into why it’s just plain futile to try to stay away from a werewolf mate on the night of a full moon. More than all that, we’re interviewing moon expert Summer Ash about moon business, and Jen is beyond excited.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review.
In two weeks, get ready for vivisection, because it’s happening on Torture Island, and we’re doing a reread of Jen’s favorite book in the series, Demon From The Dark! Malkom Slaine is a demon living alone on another plane…until witch Carrow Graie comes to fetch him. Get DFTD at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.
Show Notes
This article explains "the heir and a spare" and also has a lot of Prince Harry. Fine.
It's an astronomy heavy show, so learn all about The Big Bang.
Ah, the double entendre.
All about how goals are scored in rugby.
Turns out there are lots of myths about gods and cannibalism.
Chastity is one of the seven virtues, but the seven deadly sins sound a lot more fun.
Is it really necessary to link to Fifty Shades of Grey?
The "he-cession" recession.
Women and the second shift.
The Cooler stars WILLIAM H. Macy, obviously. Robert H. Macy isn't even a thing.
The Amazon rainforest is truly amazing, but Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro is removing legal protections from the rainforest.
A man who tried to contact a legally protected island tribe died in the South Pacific last year.
Indiana Jones and lots and lots of snakes.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider is a 2001 movie with Angelina Jolie, but here's a great explainer to the entire Lara Croft franchise.
El Dorado myths and details.
Jen's idly curious if Charlie/Isabel character is a nod to the Brazilian Travesti culture, but she doesn't know enough about it to be sure.
The Wonder Woman "Godkiller" is a sword, not an arrow.
In two weeks, we'll be discussing Malkom & Carrow in Demon From the Dark.
Welcome Summer Ash! Please check out her blog Startorialist, which brings science and fashion together.
More about moon phases and the baby moon/dying moon way of remembering if the moon is waxing or waning.
The Dreamwakers Program helps classrooms all over the country skype with scientists and STEM people. So cool!
No, you can't blow up the moon.
What If! is a great collection of XKCD columns, including Jen's favorite about whether or not you can swim in a pool with spent nuclear rods.
Jen really loves books about nuclear disasters.
Light pollution is the worst.
Check out the Sky Guide app.
More about Haley's Comet and the Bayeux Tapestry.
Astronomy on Tap is worth checking out.
The moon is amazing. Look up!
Lost Limb Count
Arms and Hands (5)
- Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
- Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
- Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
- Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
Chest and Torso (2)
- Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
- Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
Face and Eyes (3)
- Bowen loses an eye and most of his forehead during the Hie. Mariketa has cursed him and he can't heal until he returns to her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
- Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
- During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
Legs and Feet (3)
- Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
- Mariketa's skull is fractured and her leg is torn from her body. She heals herself after Bowen lays on the ground. Ivy grows over her and heals her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
- Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)
These Lingering Questions
- Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)