The Road to Hell is Paved in Plaid...

I don't know where this will end up going but I promised myself I'd sit down and write tonight. Christmas is over and the last entry I made here was well before Halloween. I have been temporarily waylaid in my writing endeavors by my Nook and what may or may not be a worrisome obsession with historical romance novels. I also have this strange drive to own up to things I fear being judged about. So sorry, but this is another one of those Confession Posts... You know what I weighed at my heaviest and what size my pants were, if you've been following this so you might as well know - I read smutty romance novels. I've no idea what sort of stigma I've feared when I first started reading my beloved trash novels, but I assume it has to do with the S.E.X. This may end up being a dozen paragraphs aimed at convincing myself there's nothing wrong with me... Hopefully, while I wrestle with my worry for my soul, you'll be mildly entertained.
As I type, I'm looking at the home page of my Nook, and there are more bare chests on the screen than in a Chippendale's calendar. My particular vice is Highlanders. Sword wielding, Scottish rogues swathed in plaid and bent on takin' a feisty lass six ways from Sunday in the Highland heather... I know it's cheesy. I know it's essentially soft core porn. I know it ought to be embarrassing that it's been months since I've read anything with a plot line more diverse than "burly guy with huge schlong meets strong-willed woman and after much difficulty in realizing their feelings through their intense desire to rut at every turn, get married and (usually) have a baby." Part of me knows I should be mortified by my e-book library, but a larger part of me says, "Fuck it. It's not crack. I can quit anytime I want to... Ummmm...Right after I find out if Lachlan will convince Lady Catherine of her true identity before or after giving her a good tumble..."
The good old Catholic guilt left over from endless Sundays of sermons and catechism nags at me a bit and I worry that maybe I'm going to Hell for reading smutty novels in my spare time, but I'm trying to keep in perspective that the only things that have fallen by the wayside in the wake of all the kilted loins and heaving bosoms has been this blog and maaaaayyybe one or two loads of laundry. Perspective is everything - I have questionable taste in literature, at the moment but I've never thrown a bag full of puppies in a river. I'm pretty sure there's still a high likelihood of Pearly Gates in my future.

But then again... just in case my own shame over this guilty pleasure doesn't eat away my insides, Barnes and Noble are happy to finish the job by suggesting titles in my account shop based on previous purchases. So when you go to my Shop Home, it might as well boom, "Hey Dirty Girl! Since you bought all that previous filth, may we suggest The Rough Riders series?" I have standards! It seems trite to point it out but, at least I have not been led so far down a path of iniquity that I've embraced crap like this: ,

What's even stranger than the super specific title, by the way is that it's a series... Other titles include Mated to a Cajun Werewolf and A Cajun Werewolf Christmas. I'm not going to consider my dalliance in trashy novels problematic until I'm trying to figure out how to bury titles like those deep in the internal memory of my Nook...

Further enabling me is my partner in crime. A good friend and fellow Dirty Girl - my Sister in Smut. She also loves the purr of a Scottish burr and alternately scoffs at and delights in ridiculous phrases such as, "tasted deeply of her honeyed center," and "his throbbing member." We GET how cheesy it is... we just don't care. It makes for a good cackle in the hallway when we trade notes about how late we were up reading, or that after 90+ titles we still read things that shock us. Smut is LENDABLE when you have a Nook and we take turns purchasing trash with titles like Seduced By the Highlander and Loved By a Warrior. There are endless text message threads between us, usually sent between the hours of 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. that look like this:

"ACK!! I just read the word, 'cock!' Whatever happened to 'turgid member' or 'throbbing manhood'??? This is a line I was not ready to cross...."
or
Me: "Bahahahahaha! Just read: "spilled his scalding seed..." response: "Eeeeewww.... I think I need to take a shower now." Me: "heh heh... mission accomplished."
And now that seventeenth century curses are seeping into our everyday vernacular:
"Satan's arse! What a fookin' boring staff meeting today, was it not, lass?"

And even though my partner in crime makes me feel less like a deviant dork, I still feel compelled to guard the contents of my Nook or I would be able to answer questions like "What are you reading?" without panicking and squeaking out lame shit like, "a book..." The fear of judgement also comes from my understanding that the fairytale-princess bullshit spoon-fed to little girls that I so despise is alive and kicking (or fucking, more precisely) in the books I've been unable to put down. I really am a sucker for a sappy love story. Admittedly, the soft-core porn aspect is just icing on the beefcake. Take out all the sex and these books are just a Disney movie waiting to be merchandised. So what's worse, I'm forced to ponder? Someone thinking I'm a sex-starved deviant or someone realizing that I swoon over the corny love stuff?

I have decided to give myself over to this little addiction for the time being and be grateful I'm off the Nutty Bars. It's win-win, really. I'm thinner, healthier, and hornier and The Dad gets the benefit of it all.  Thank goodness the Tornado has agreed and (LOVES) to hear me read aloud from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the last few weeks. At bedtime when I read to the kids, I can feel clean again :-) until such time of course, as I settle onto the couch with my Nook - my Portal of Sin, and I lose myself somewhere in the 1600's between Glencoe and Inveraray to 6 feet+ of sinewy muscle wrapped in tartan, brandishing a claymore with his other hand on his sword. {If you got that joke - Welcome to the club, Dirty Girl}

It's comical and campy and perfectly decadent but I guess that's the definition of a guilty pleasure, right?
I think I'm good for now, but if you see my kids wandering the streets unattended, or you notice that I appear to have left off bathing or brushing my teeth, please confiscate my Nook.