• TipRing@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    As a young man I worked in a bookstore and when I discovered the amount of smut in romance novels it was pretty shocking.

    Then I read the Claiming of Sleeping Beauty.

    I was not prepared for that.

    • MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      So, I tried the first few chapters. At what point does it become illegal? (Spoiler alert. They explain how she was asleep for hundreds of years, but they also describe her little 15 year old body way too much)

      Sure, the author can get paid for writing that. But if I request fan art or AI art of it, then I’m in trouble?

      (I’m not requesting that art. Nor am I continuing the books. You can still tell the same story with a 25 y/o Prince and a 19 y/o princess)

      • TipRing@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        It’s been decades since I’ve read it, so I wasn’t sure if I remembered that part correctly or I would have mentioned it. I recall another part where one of the princes gets raped that was really messed up as well. And just a lot of rape in general in that book that I thought was gross. I recall really being disturbed by it more than I was by The Clan of the Cave Bear because the latter presented the rape of Ayla (as a child) in an intentionally gross, traumatic and disturbing way, while Anne Rice wrote the rape of Beauty in an erotic way.

        Anyway, both books frequent banned books lists. I read many banned books during my time at the bookstore.