Romance Novels: My Proverbial Crack

  A few months ago, I was introduced to The Fifty Shades Trilogy.  Now, at first, I was very reluctant and for a reason:  I hated Romance novels and all things Romantic in nature.  Having just gotten out of a bad relationship, Romance had become the furthest thing from my mind.  I had forgo dreams of being kissed by a handsome prince and being whisked away into my happily ever after.  I put all thoughts of love and happiness into a storage bin and kicked it into the dark corner of my mind to let it gather dust and cobwebs.  After the shit my ex put me through, I wanted nothing more to do with Romance let alone read it.

  However, once I read through the trilogy, I found myself reading it again and again and again and again.  Then, before I knew it, I was recommending it to everybody, including my co-workers and strangers on the street.  I found myself even buying duplicate copies of all three books because when I would lend it out I found myself missing it and wanting to read it yet again.  It got so bad that I now had to psyche myself into diving into a literary database at work to try and find something similar. 

  Then, good fortune struck in a post on my Facebook timeline from a good friend from high school.  She recommended that I read "Bared To You" by Sylvia Day.  So, finding that I could not get it at work because it was on hold, I impatiently ran out during lunch and got the book.  And, like The Fifty Shades Trilogy, I found myself reading this one again and again and again and again. 

  Once again, I found myself in need of yet another similar read.  So, one day after work, I ventured into Barnes and Noble to buy a magazine.  I turn to see a display and saw the following:  If you liked Fifty Shades of Grey, then you will like... It was the book "Gabriel's Inferno" and its sequal "Gabriel's Rapture" by Sylvain Reynard.  I finished these two within 72 hours.  And, like before, read it again and again and again. 

  Yes, I will admit that my latest fixation on Romance novels has become, as the title of this blog says, my proverbial crack.  I am now addicted to books that I had vowed to avoid reading at all costs.  Books that I had earlier admonished for catering to the fantasies of Lonely, Single Women and Desperate, Bored Housewives.  Books I chalked up to being nothing but schlock that ALL women wish would happen to them in real life.  I would fantasize about having a huge bonfire consisting of nothing but these crap books.  Now, the thought is no longer entertained.

  Now, some men may feel that by their girlfriends or wives reading these books that this renders them insignificant as a lover.  I don't think they do.  They just take us away from reality temporarily.  It's not that you're bad in the sack or if you have Micro-Penis that you cannot satisfy them.  It's just our pornography of choice. 

  For the men reading this, I ask you this:  Playboy, Penthouse or Hustler?  Which of these magazines do you look at when you are in your bathroom rubbing one off while you have Metallica blaring in hopes to mask your cries of fantastical pleasure while you look at a woman other than the one you're with?  Answer that one for me!  And some of you have the audacity to get pissed off at us for reading a trilogy of books because all of us women fantasize about having our very own Christian Grey!  You can masturbate while looking at another woman in a magazine, but if we read about another guy in a book you get pissed with us!  If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, then I don't what it is!  Stop admonishing us for what we read and we won't admonish you for yours!  Let us have our porn and we will gladly let you keep yours in whatever spot you have it hidden in! 

  There, I've made a case for us women.  Now I'm going back to my current read.  Good night!