The Five Languages of Love, Dark of the Moon, and Beauty's Punishment

[snugglekitty]

I read The Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman on the advice of avivasedai and chiennefolle. Hearing a book suggested by two disparate sources made me want to try it, so I got it out of the library. Wow. Just wow. Yes, there were some problems - the author has very traditional ideas about marriage and gender roles, not to mention sex, but the central thesis of the book was great. He writes that men have a physical need for sex, from sperm building up in their testicles, while women only have an emotional need for sex when they feel that their husbands are attracted to them... right then. He also writes that because of the sexual freedom movement, we now know that open marriage doesn't work... Basically, the idea is that people need different things in order to feel loved, which fall into five different categories. The ways that we try to express love for each other are often unsuccessful because we are not speaking the language our spouse or child understands. This makes a lot of sense, and I'm hoping I can do a better job of figuring out what my sweeties' love languages are. Four stars, I'll come back and add another star if this actually works.

I also finished reading Dark of the Moon by PC Hodgell. The first book in this series, God Stalk, was funny and city-based, kind of a Thieves World thing. The second book had a very different style - more of a classic fantasy sort of thing. It was okay, but I didn't like it as much. Three stars.

And, I finished Beauty's Punishment by Ann Rice. Somehow, I need to slow down my reading of the Beauty books even more, as suggested by avivasedai. Otherwise, they start to get a little... monotonous. Yes, monotonous. I was struck by a few things about this book. 1) I don't care what you say, someone washing the floor with a scrub brush in their mouth is Not Efficient. If I owned a slave, I would get MUCH better use out of them than that. 2) "Before we were pampered pets. Now we're having to actually WORK in between being used sexually and beaten horribly - oh, the horror! And if that wasn't bad enough - it's by people from a LOWER CLASS!" 3) I was unsurprised to see that the next iteration, as demonstrated by the end of the book, is being used by people WHO AREN'T WHITE. Once again, oh the horror.
The classist/racist aspect of these books is Not Sexy. That's my opinion. Three stars for book #5.

Comments

[hanseth.livejournal.com]

women only have an emotional need for sex when they feel that their husbands are attracted to them

That totally and completely cracks me up. But I'm interested in the central thesis of the book, it sounds intriguing.

btw, love the new reading icon. The red eyes make it.