The Lives of the Enlish rakes by Fergus Linnane is a non-fiction account of the sexual misadventures of upper class English men, spanning from 1660 to the 1900s. Since I never studied history at school and have an extremely limited knowlege of the English history, I had to gloss over sections relating to things like Oliver Cromwell and some sort of civil war. I know this is a bad thing on my part, but it says something for the book that a complete cretin like me could be drawn in and held captively interested for the duration even though there were some bits that made me go 'eh?'. Anyway, so the definition of a rake is, as best as I can put it: a gentleman who drinks, womanises and enjoys life to the full - but there is something more to it, a sort of cavalier attitude that is immediately endearing and goes some way to explaining why even the most outrageous behaviour was only met with tuts from the court - of course, that is before Queen Victoria's time. Queen Victoria did for the rakes what MacDonalds has done to the fast food industry: eliminated all competative viewpoints until only the one (hers) exists. Her viewpoint happened to be something along the lines of 'sex is ikcy!'. Anyway, this book describes the depraved doings of these daredevil dandys cleverly and in such a way that you forget you are reading an historical documentation. I like how, on the surface, it seems like the role of the woman in the English court was to stand fanning yourself and saying 'Lah, sir!' coquettishly to the nearest fop; but when you get down to it a lot of the public opinion and policy decisions of the upper class men was dictated by the activities of their mistresses. Certainly these woman controlled the cash flow situtation with a lot of very wealthy men, and in so doing surely in some way shaped the future of the country.
Three powdered wigs.
The second book, 'Snuff' by Chuckles Palahniuk, is totally awesome. It follows a porn star, Cassie Wright, who is trying to break the 'most sex in a day' world record by doing 600 men in a day. The book follows three of the men who make up the 600; Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600; while they are waiting backstage for their 1 minute of allotted time with Ms Wright. Most of the dialogue is internal as the three men interact minimally with each other until their number is called. There isn't much actual sex, however, its more like extended foreplay building up to the moment on film. There are some hilarious porn film names, for example 'Gropes or Wrath' and 'Chitty chitty gang bang', and a good deal of 'insider' info on the porn industry, which makes me respect Mr Palahniuk's ability to really get into a topic and research the poop out of it, weeding out all the dirty little secrets it would seem the industry would prefer to remain secret. Or actually, they probably wouldn't really care because what is clear from this book is that sex sells, it always has and in all probability it always will.
Five bleeding hearts!
And, bringing the sexual revolution to a close is the honest and frank portrayal of the stripping industry 'Candy Girl' by Diablo Cody. Diablo writes very well, she has a lot of the flair in this book that was so prominent in her screenplays - which first endeared her to me after all. The issue here is I might have a sliiiiightly biased point of view on strippers... Besides the point, maybe, but Diablo Cody's account didn't exactly endear me to the industry. I mean, I totally understand her motives for doing what she did, and you could argue that she wasn't hurting anyone anyway; but for some reason I just find the whole thing a little dirty, a little seedy and a little too eager to please - maybe because thats what a stripper seems to be, for me anyway. Personal distate aside, it's a very well written book and funny in places, and I must say that the costumes she wears sound very cool. Anyway, I am aware that this review marks me down as some sort of prude and I would like to assure the reader that I am, in fact, not. She can shake her downstairs and get dudes to put money between her boobies (yukky money germs) and if that makes her happy, so be it. Gotta say though: dudes, your idea of sexuality is pretty warped. I have to conclude that the male psyche is more weird than we gave them credit for to begin with. Ladies: you thought that a lap dance was bad, check out a 'bed dance' if you really wanna be grossed out. Yeah, yeah, prude, I know.
3 nice clean pine beds.
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