Have you read it?

You know: the hottest mommy porn to hit e-readers everywhere. The S&M the title that is being discussed on every media site, and being read on every pool side.

50 Shades of Grey.

I’m not embarrassed to say I read it, for work purposes of course. And it made me uncomfortable.

It wasn’t the graphic coupling, and the descriptions of her “sex” and her many almost  orgasms achieved under dubious circumstances that turned me off. It wasn’t even the bad writing, the typos, the need for an edit. It wasn’t  the multiple references for a need for a hair tie, as in: he asked me if I had a hair tie, I  had two hair ties, he braided my hair and put on a hair tie; where did the hair tie come from? [Note: these are loose quotes as I can't be bothered to go back and read the book looking for hair tie quotes -- believe me there are many.]

Or as Maria at Bored Mommy noted the multiple uses of the word Mewl.

Or the lazy anachronisms such as a 2011 university student not having a computer, or a cellphone or the strange cropping up of British terms such as “satchel”.

Or even that the book was first posted at a fan site as a re-write of Twilight complete with dashing man, virginal lead and a secret room filled with darkness and red leather.

I hated it because of the power dynamic. The story is of a young 21-year old university student, weeks away from graduation who meets a very handsome, fabulously wealthy, controlling man a few years his senior. Their attraction is immediate but before they can have a relationship she has to commit to being his “submissive” and not look him in the eye, and only eat what he tells her, and succumb to punishment if she breaks the rules. Of course, the punishment is a turn-on, at least for him.

Fans say that Anastasia Steele  is actually the one in control because she can say refuse Christian Grey’s rules.  I didn’t think she was the one in control, she may have had the ultimate say in the relationship but she is not an active player in the sex scenes, she is completely passive with her hands figuratively and literally tied. And since this is a book about sex, I think that says a lot about her agency.

I could have lived with all that if I had found Christian Grey remotely attractive.  I could put aside my need for equality and succumbed to this charms if he had any positive attributes other than his auburn hair and smouldering eyes. But no, I found him dull, handsome and rich, but dull. Only the email exchanges showed any humour in any of the characters, in fact they were the best part of the book.

But putting aside the writing issues and one-dimensional characters, what does the book’s popularity say about us moms, who are indulging in the “mommy porn”? Some pundits suggest that the attraction to this novel is that women in the feminist age want to read about submission, “to counteract the the more theatrical fantasies of sexual surrender offer a release, a vacation, an escape from the dreariness and hard work of equality,” says tiresome anti-feminist writer Kate Roiphe.

Yes, after storming the ramparts of the patriarchy all day, all I want to do is lie down in my pajama jeans and read some sexist smut.

Unlike Roiphe, I don’t think that this book says anything about the state of feminism in North America, (I look to the eradication of our reproductive rights to know that is true).  Maybe the term “mommy porn” has more to do with the media, than it does with us moms. There is little proof that this book was in fact, more popular with moms than it was with women of all kinds. But the fact that it got dubbed mommy porn, probably increased it’s popularity with moms. And so the viscous media cycle, mom panels and blog posts began.

Why the interest in moms reading smut? Are we moms so sexually mordant that a badly-written book about BDSM gets us all atwitter? The term mommy porn implies that moms read this book because our sex lives are over.  Or our need for romance is so strong that we sit around in our yoga pants craving a literary getaway where the man takes over and tells us to “eat!” and “bend down and don’t let go of the bedpost” [again loose quotes].

There is something sexist underlying the hype, as if we tired, frigid moms need a book to put some spice back into our lives, it is implied in all the coverage that our husbands are lucky if we read it — maybe we will get adventurous in the bedroom.

Corinna Lawson over at GeekMom says the mommy porn label does a disservice to the romance genre, which is the largest segment of the book publishing market:

Women are interested in the romance genre because the stories feature women, something that’s somewhat lacking in other genres and sorely lacking still on the movie screen.

The fact is that the largest single segment of the U.S. consumer book market is being derided because it’s fiction written by women for women or dismissed as “mommy porn” should be concerning to all women or all those interested in judging someone not on their gender but as an individual. It’s yet another way in which female sexuality or girl parts can be derided or dismissed as unimportant.

I admit I don’t read traditional romance novels, nor have I read too much erotica. (I haven’t read Twilight either.) But I would read some of the books that Lawson or Jezebel recommends to see if they appeal to my inner romantic or outer vixen.

The embarrassing thing is, that even though I didn’t like the book and do not want to give any more time to the twisted world of Ana and Christian, I kind of want to know what happens next.  So if anyone could tell me, I would appreciate it.

Have your read it?  Did you like it?  Do you generally read romance or erotica?

Prepare thine heart to explode into a million pieces because this baby has talent — or at the very least an amazing ability to sing along to a beautiful song.

When my little girl began singing along with the music I played for her, I melted into a puddle of goo and now at the rip old age of 6 she can still stop me in my tracks with her rendition of Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose.

This 2 year old girl has the same effect with Adele’s Someone Like You. Enjoy your Tuesday ray of toddler laden sunshine

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Adele img by Christopher Macsurak

Put a baby in a video and you pretty know you have a really cute video on your hands because come on, it’s a baby! Add a dog with strong parenting instincts into the mix and you’re guaranteed to be witnessing a cute video to the extreme. Add an overused musical soundtrack and you’ve given your mute button a sense of purpose. This video covers all of the above.

Warning: The following video contains an extremely cute baby, an extremely awesome dog parent, and music that will make you scramble for the mute button unless Henry Mancini is your kind of thing (no judging, just warning).

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Take a look at this photo and spare a thought for Jessica Simpson, if you will.

I remember being nine months pregnant and feeling like my body had been taken over by not one but three vast, quivering aliens. I remember being front-heavy and unable to stand up without mechanical assistance. I remember having to buy all new bras – twice – to manage these unbelievable breasts that had basically grown out of nowhere.

And then, I saw this photo of Jessica Simpson. And while Jessica has always been beautifully curvy, those curves have taken on an entirely new level as she approaches childbirth. I hope it’s not too insulting to point out that right now, she defines the phrase “heavily pregnant”.

And I say, GOOD FOR HER. Good for her for showing what a REAL pregnant woman looks like. Good for her for working those enormous boobs. Good for her for that vast, round belly. Good on her for being REAL, and not hiding out because she’s not a stick insect with a bruise on her hip. Every single real woman who has ever had a baby – or at least, the non-bitchy ones – can look at her right now and go, oh god, I remember that. I remember 9 months pregnant. I remember how the last month of pregnancy makes the prospect of dealing with a screaming infant actually seem appealing.

And then we think of her poor feet and send her suggestions for orthotic flip-flops, because they’re probably the only thing she can get around your swollen toes right now.  Except she’s not wearing flip flops, she’s wearing these.

OK, she might be pregnant, but she’s still Hollywood.

But never mind. She’s paid to wear shoes like that. So let’s spare a thought for the rest of her, the gloriously full, swollen, stretched, puffy, full of life her. Because she’s beautiful, and she’s rounded, and because that’s what a real pregnant lady looks like.

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I once gave an interview to a writerly friend about sex during pregnancy. I totally forgot about it until the wife of my husband’s work colleague came up to me and told me that she knew all about my sex life, she had read about it while at the doctor’s office.

Yowza.

But I think she was a little jealous. Because sex during pregnancy, well it kinda rocks. One of my usually reticent friends told me that her second trimester was the only time she has understood what it feels like to be a man.  I’m sorry if you didn’t feel that way.

thanks to Pregnantchicken.com

Obviously, Amy at PregnantChicken agrees that pregnant women’s sexual side deserves to be recognized because she came up with a series of “Hey, girl…” type posters that she entitled “Porn for Pregnant Women”. Truth is you don’t need to be pregnant to feel a little warm when checking them out. Who knew discussing car safety features or shades of green could be so hot?

thanks to pregnantchicken.com

Go to Pregnantchicken to see all the posters. You don’t have to be pregnant to enjoy (or a chicken).

What about you? Pregnancy: hot or not?

The following post is dedicated to all the parents who have ever felt guilty about a parenting decision that other parents may have judged or frowned upon. For all of us who have been in that position, deep down you knew that decision was the right one and completely necessary in conquering the quest to ‘just get things done without anyone losing a limb or sanity‘ but it’s still difficult feeling the eyes of Judgy McJudgerson on your neck.

Maybe you said ‘yes‘ to the relentless 7 year old who would not get dressed unless she could play one more round of Angry Birds and you just wanted to get ready for work without yelling at anyone before noon. Blackmail, shmakmail.

Or maybe you allowed the begging 4 year old to wear that Batman costume for one more day — despite the fear of a call from the public health department — all in the name of ‘getting out the door‘ because fabric is fabric and it all achieves body part coverage. That’s the important thing, right? Whatever it takes to get everyone on with their day.

Or maybe you let little Logan eat breakfast along side his beloved pet at the dining table because he promised to finish all his cereal and bananas without any whining…

OH MY HOLY GOOD GRAVY what the heck is that reptile-slash-horror-movie-prop creature and am I safe in assuming that it prefers KiX over Kids?!?! Someone say ‘yes‘ and confirm we are not watching whatever that is have it’s pre-breakfast bowl of cereal of KiX before having a bowl of KID.

Whatever it takes folks, whatever it takes.

Have you heard about our Dare to Draw challenge which kicks off today? Bad Moms ask you to join your kids in this awesome campaign to raise funds to help support kids, parents and grandparents who are working to turn the tide of AIDS in Africa — all you need is a creative child who loves to draw. Join The Bad Moms Club Dare Team and let’s show our kids we can all make a difference.

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Because is there really such a thing as a ‘bad’ school portrait? OK, there is such a thing as a ‘bad’ school portrait and that fact grows exponentially by the child’s age but regardless of the actual results of this annual rite of student passage, parents in general will buy the image to mark that year in history.

Even if they kid has a snotty nose, or a tangled collar with a soup stain down the front of the shirt (why do they do photo sessions after lunch?), or hair like Medusa (that’s my kid!), we love the snapshot of our progeny in their institutionalized state.

And what about those school photographers? I often felt that these folks were in photographer purgatory of some sort. Dashed dreams of high fashion or National Geographic assignments dead in the dustbin of life. That’s what I was thinking when I watched this short called ‘The Angry School Photographer’. His mission is to break every child’s smile so it matches his attitude but this time he has met his match:

School Portrait (2011) from Michael Berliner on Vimeo.

School Portrait (2011) from Michael Berliner on Vimeo.

Enjoy. Happy Monday and please share your worst school portrait story below.

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I have a broken wrist and limited typing ability. I will tell THAT entire story some other time. Until then, I will bring you: The Top 5 Christmas Carols For Bad Moms. Because I can do it with minimal typing. Phoning it in FTW!

5.  Queen – Thank God It’s Christmas.  “Oh my friends it’s been a long hard year.” The refrains of epic relief that another insane year is finally over is common to all bad moms, isn’t it?

4. Boney M/Jose Feliciano: Feliz Navidad. Nobody can understand a goddamn word, but we all sing it anyway.

3. The Ramones. “Merry Christmas, I don’t want to fight tonight” (As we assemble this stupid toy for Santa)
Merry Christmas, I don’t want to fight tonight” (That has ten thousand goddamn pieces and instructions in Cantonese and German BUT I DO NOT SPEAK THOSE LANGUAGES)
Merry Christmas, I don’t want to fight tonight with you” (Even though you said you’d pick up batteries and you FUCKING FORGOT YOU TWIT)

Ahhh.

2. Fairytale of New York. “You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas you arse I pray God it’s our last.” Amen.

1.  Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Power Of Love. Not always labeled as a Christmas song, but you remember being in the high school gym during the Christmas prom and waiting for the cute boy to ask you to dance but then he asked that icky Elizabeth to dance instead even though you know he was going to ask you but she came over first and oh never mind. It’s a good song.

This Bad Mom is loving this Star Wars Suess mashup because my little Star Wars fan — who incidentally loves to play Darth Vader’s theme whenever she feels like life is not treating her the way it should be and she needs that extra injection of little evil emperor in her life — has been requesting this non-stop since we discovered it this weekend.

Meet the Sith of Whoville, a great twist on the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas:

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You know those times when you know you’re being a crap parent and you think, well, whatever, surely she won’t notice! She’s too young for it to REALLY matter!  I can just modify my own behaviour next week/year/month, sometime when it really has an impact! And then in an instant, all that stuff you’ve been thinking you’ll deal with later suddenly blows up in a LATER IS NOW BITCH right in your face? That.

This morning, my two year old was digging in the tupperware cupboard. I like to pretend that I leave that cupboard completely disorganized because hey! She’ll trash it anyway!  But the truth is it’s no more organized than any of my other cupboards, so. She reached her chubby toddler arms in and pulled out random items – an ice cube tray, a water bottle, a green tupperware lid.  As she wrestled with the awkward plastic, a tupperware dish suddenly tumbled and hit the floor. She shunted the rest of the stuff in to one arm and bent over to pick up the lid, grumpily muttering  “shit” as she leaned down.

Shit.

She said shit.

At least it sounded like she said shit.

And not only did it sound like she said shit, it sounded like she said it in context.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Of COURSE she knows how to swear at age two. She can’t put on her shoes or use pronouns properly, but cursing? She’s got it nailed. I put down my coffee mug and pondered exactly how to deal with this new and disturbing development. For the record, I don’t exactly have a problem with most curse words if used appropriately. This would be obvious to anyone, given my own peppery language. But there is such a thing as age-appropriate behaviour, and it is apparently up to me to ensure that my child acts like a two year old while she is two, and I suspect this does not involve a Jersey Shore vocabulary.

Yet – how to nip it in the bud? My instinct says not to call attention to it but rather to ignore it, that if I leave it alone the behaviour will burn off. However, there’s a weakness in this tactic: it will only work if I also stop modelling it. And given that the presence of a two year old in the house hasn’t caused me to modify my vocabulary yet, this could be an issue.

Sighing, I turned to the internet in a brief bid to ignore the problem. And as the internet often does, it provided an entirely new perspective when this showed up in my feed.

Why yes, baby doll’s just babbling random babble that coincidentally sounds just like “Hey, Crazy Bitch!”

The manufacturers say it’s all a coincidence, that it just sounds like something it isn’t.

Suddenly, I seized on the answer. Perhaps that’s what’s going on here, too: It just *sounds* like my child knows how to swear in context. But she really doesn’t! Honest!

Yeah, I don’t believe me either.

Still, I took heart. Perhaps she’ll get a lucrative job providing voice recordings for the next Offend-o-baby.