Aubible recently had it’s Black Friday sale, which amounted to 400 titles all reduced to under $5 each. Being the massive audiobook fiend that I am, I picked up about 8 or 9 books. On What Grounds and Gunmetal Magic among them. Both are mystery series with a strong female protagonist, one set in early 2000s New York, the other in a post-apocalyptic Atlanta. Both protagonists are awesome, experienced ladies to know their job backwards and forwards, not only have talent for their craft, but true passion, and who live like nuns while the men they love fuck around and play games.
I’ve seen this in other books as well, most notably the Sookie Stackhouse series. An otherwise awesome woman just can not seem to figure out a way to have any kind of sexual fulfillment without some gigantic douche-nozzle with a square chin and exposed chest hair. These guys pick up and put down pussy like they’re looking for the expiration date, while the women they love, who love them, who you know are going to end up with their neanderthal asses by the end of the series, sit and wait with their cunts in the fridge.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I started a twitter rant.
Female protagonists follow this rule: Dudes get to fuck and that makes them desirable. Ladies say no, and that makes them desirable
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
A lady can be a monster, a warrior, a shark in business. She can even be sexy, but she can never ever fuck.
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
She can give herself to one man at a time, after chapters, sometimes even books, full of careful pursuit.
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
I'm so sick of reading book after book of these brash, amazing, successful, women who tuck their cunts away in gilded cages.
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
You can pop fifteen dudes heads open like water balloons, but you can't have an orgasm unattended by your "soul mate" BARF.
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
Of course that soul mate will be changing by the next book or the book after. And she's always soooo conflicted for fucking another dood
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
Writers of female protagonists. Get. Fucking. Over. Your. Sexphobia.
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
You see it in a lot of stuff. Felicity Smoak in Arrow, brilliant genius literally reduced to a PA, pining away while Ollie fucks world.
— Marina Rose Martinez (@Marinaisgo) December 5, 2013
The obvious solution is to write this illusive fuck-machine lady detective myself. But jut because I think it should be done, doesn’t mean I think it’s easy to do. I received the same sex phobic training that every other lady on this planet got. It’s hard for me to think of a female character who would own her sexuality without seeming preachy. But I’ve decided to try.
And I have another Friday poll for you to pick the setting. (Yes, I’m well aware that I haven’t actually written the Jake and Jessica that’s supposed to come after the last poll, but life got crazy.)