I’ve spent the last five nights going to bed with Julie Henneman, I mean Julie Henneman’s book, Always Listen to the Ravings of a Mad Woman: A Story of Sex, Porn, and Postum in the Land of Zion. When I wasn’t curling up with the book, I was stalking her on her acronym filled blog. I would encourage all of you to go read her blog (and my unsolicited comments which she has graciously posted up until now.). As you can see from one her MySpace picture’s I pilfered, this appears to be one raving woman you might just want to listen to.
Now, I’m not usually a chick lit[1] kind of guy and this book is definitely chick-litty, so I am going to have to rely on my somewhat ashamed addiction to Sex and the City for insight into the burgeoning world of chick lit. In chick-lit, the heroine has at least two, probably three side kicks – the oversexed beauty, the New Agey friend and the newcomer. Ravings’ heroine, Corinne, has all three and two spinster visiting teachers as well.
Yes, visiting teachers, Sister Sunny and Sister Bright. This book takes place in Salt Lake City (as evidenced by the Salt Lake temple out the naked woman's window on the cover) and in the heart of Mormon-dom. The first couple of chapters were filled with what would be Mormon[2] cliches if we had more Mormon-centric fiction: phallic temples, South American missionary with 2 baptisms a week and a parasite, bad Utah drivers, Honor Roll bumper stickers, Mormon Assault Vehicle (mini-van) and of course, Postum[3].
But what about the sex? SEX HERE FOR ALL YOU PORNO FREAKS. Yes, the book has sex -- some steamy explicit scenes[4] with thong underwear, lactation and doggy style sex, but here is the rub – the book is ostensibly anti-porn[5]. I’m intrigued by the dichotomy of the anti-porn heroine fucking her dentist, well, almost fucking her dentist. The equivalent is a book on the evils of alcoholism with a hero, who doesn’t mind a shot or two of tequila to quiet the nerves or on the evils of drug addiction, with a hero who breaks out the meth pipe when he gets tired.
The battle of the pro-sex and anti-sex feminists is played out inside the heroine’s head. You can almost hear Catherine MacKinnon or Andrea Dworkin whispering "All sex is rape", while Corinne’s body fills with raw lust. No wonder she is raving. Throw into that secular mix, all of the Mormon religion’s spin on sex and it is no wonder Corinne is a confused mess. Corinne’s pop psychology answer is that her husband is a sex addict, because he can’t stop looking at porn and jacking off. She is a co-addict facilitating his descent into addiction. Porn is the ostensible smack of his sex addiction.
Having been accused of being a sex addict at various times in my life[6], I read with interest Ms. Henneman’s dissection of the male characters in this book. Men, we don’t come out very well. After picking up a younger man at a club and bringing him home, Corinne rebuffs him at the last minute, because she doesn’t want to be just a piece of ass and respects herself more than that. She later does the same when dumping her dentist. She accuses her husband of wanting to use her as a live masturbatory device. (You can take the girl out of Mormonism, but you can’t take the Mormonism out of the girl.)
For the main character, the mere presence of male sexual attraction and desire reduces and objectifies women. This is an insidious double standard with male desire as objectifying, demeaning and crass and female desire as subjective, uplifting and pure. This double standard is just as perverse and dysfunctional as the double standard of male sexuality being studly and female sexuality being slutty. Sex is yin and yang and when it is working best, more complementary than competitive.
The book resonated with me on what I am sure is a normal and frequent reaction women have to finding their significant male other viewing porn. The disturbing part however is what will make it sell well in the female coffee clatches --- the lack of empathy for the male point of view. Corinne seems incapable of understanding why her husband is hiding the porn from her, even though they had viewed it together before.
News Flash: Her husband was raised Mormon. Mormon's hide their sexuality, especially Mormon men. We hide our communal historical sexuality. Hell, men are programmed to hide our masturbation, even lie about it to function well within the society from the age of 12 on. Damn, Boyd K. Packer and that little pamphlet. You either lie to the bishop or you are on a continual track of repentance for your sexuality from puberty to marriage. With a conditioning program like that, of course you are going to hide your porn. Half the thrill is in the deceit, because that got indoctrinated with every teenage orgasm spasm.
I think the ending of the book is quite telling, because the porn-addicted husband leaves his apostate wife and goes back to church. This novel could be used as a religious tract by the Mormon side – his wayward wife wouldn’t forgive him for his porn addiction and he repented, stopped drinking beer and started going to church and when she wouldn’t follow, so they got divorced. Having him return to church activity and Elder’s quorum president status in his single ward is the happy Mormon ending. The main twist is this book is told solely from the smart ass wife’s point of view.
Now before you think I’m being sexist, calling the main character and narrator a smart ass – she is. In fact, her smart ass attitude is one of the most enjoyable parts of the book. The whole book feels like you are just waiting for her to start flipping you off as the reader. Corinne may have a complete lack of compassion for the male perspective, but this is chick lit and you have to have a sassy attitude – it is a requirement of the genre. Think Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex in the City as a Mormon housewife, along with a little Roseanne Barr thrown in and you get the picture.
Which brings me to the conclusion of my review – Will I always listen to the ravings of this mad woman? No. Will I always find the ravings amusing? Usually. Should you buy the book? Damn skippy, you can never buy too many books. The book excels at giving a realistic picture of how warped views of sexuality muck up people’s lives, even though it falls short of giving a full and balanced picture. I also think of this as a genre piece of fiction and as a piece of Utah based chick lit, it is the closest things we have to Bridget Jone’s Diary with visiting teachers.[7]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Chick lit is short for chick literature which is short for feminist sponsored literary endeavors, usually published with pastel colors on the cover. It appears that Ravings opted for the more resplendent red satin color of a romance novel, but this isn’t a romance novel, so don’t be fooled by the cover.
[2] When I use the term Mormon, I am using it in the sense of relating to all things Mormon, say within six degrees of separation of Joseph Smith. Thus, Ex-Mo, Pro-Mo, Anti-Mo, Post-Mo and even Slo-Mo would all be included.
[3] I’ve always had a fondness for that grainy drink. Given the fact that I like only a little coffee with massive amounts of milk and sugar, Postum really does taste the same as coffee to me. My grandparents always used to have Postum and it was damn good. Not Ovaltine, but the fact that it was sinisterly close to coffee (and being made out of barley – close to beer, too) warmed my heart as much as the boiled water. One interesting side effect of reading the book – I went out and got myself some Postum.
[4] Page 58 and 70-72 if you can’t wait when you get the book. Plus you can go to Julieann’s short story on the web that has "pussy" in the first sentence.
[5] Yes, I intended the capital letters to be ironic -- and attract attention.
[6] The first time would have to have been my self accusations as I headed with dread into the bishop’s office to confess yet again that I had again violated the law of chastity by beating off. I always tried to stop at least a month before the scheduled interview so that I could plead repentance.
[7] The visiting teachers at the strip club scene is worth the price of the book alone. JulieAnn, the last half sentence was the blurb you can use showing how wonderful I thought it all was.
