For a cheapie like me, nothing gets my blood boiling more than my HARD-earned tax dollars being spent on stupid, fruitless, pointless things…like the Popular Romance Project. A study on romance in popular culture? Really?!
What monkey (or fleet of monkeys) brainstorming on the crapper came up with this? This is a valid study because sex sells? People like sex? What an epiphany! Who knew?!
Ummmm, well….we all knew. And we’ve ALWAYS known. Sex has been selling since the first penis “accidentally” slipped into the first vagina! Sex has been used as currency and for control since the beginning of man. So why a study that spent—you ready for it?—almost a MILLION dollars since 2010 on this? How did this happen?!
Being a phone sex operator, I naturally know A LOT about sex. What guys want, all the different fetishes, what the hot topics are of the moment, etc. I don’t read watered-down romance novels because 1) they are watered down! 2) they are traditionally written by hack writers with very little talent, 3) I don’t like things that pander to bored and horny housewives, because if they start giving it up again, that cuts into MY business, and 4) they just aren’t GOOD. Now, how can a “lowly” phonesex girl make such a claim? So I work in the adult industry…but that doesn’t mean I’m a dullard. I READ. I mean, I REALLY read. I’m not talking Twilight and issues of Vogue and 50 Shades of SHIT here: Dostoyevsky, Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Rand…you know, people who write COMPELLING stories with flair, and this little thing called talent. As far as I can tell, romance novels are pretty much a joke to the rest of the literary world. And speaking of Twilight, this “project” actually poses questions like if the Edward character is “controlling or romantic”. Who cares?! It’s FICTION! And fiction for the undeveloped minds of tweens, to boot!
And besides, don’t ALL love stories and fairy tales just give women the wrong expectations, anyway? I mean, when I was a little girl, those stories had me believing that by this age, I would have met my knight in shining armor, he would have swept me off my feet, and we’d be married with beautiful kids by now.
Riiiiiiiight.
I definitely did NOT envision the studio apartment I live in now, or being paid to assist in masturbation over the phone. Not that I’m complaining—as an adult I no longer compare myself to those ludicrous stories which do nothing to prepare young girls for what love and sex are really like in the real world. Did we really need to spend more money perpetuating—nay, celebrating—these pathetic illusions?
So WHAT, exactly, does this Popular Romance Project reveal? It’s fine and good to study things on an individual level—I would think it was great if I had a friend who wanted to study, and even write a book on, romance across the ages. Not my cup of tea, but I do like history in general and that’s fine. But tax dollars spent to explore this? HELLS TO THE NO.
This is what their site has to say about this “important” project:
“The Popular Romance Project will explore the fascinating, often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, songs, and internet fan fiction, taking a global perspective—while looking back across time as far as the ancient Greeks.”
Hmmmmmm…so they didn’t even study REAL romance stories, just the fiction? I mean, who gives a shit except for the people who read that crap anyway? Again I ask, “how did this happen?”I really don’t think the average income-earner (NOT the stay-at-home-moms who read that junk) would justify even a single collective dollar going to the project, let alone over 900K!
A “global perspective” on fictional romance? How about a global perspective on the medical uses of marijuana and its possible benefits to the global economy? A global perspective on crime…murder…or ANY kind of mental illness—I’d read THAT. And THAT might have some real value; real conclusions that could then be parlayed into some kind of change or awareness. Ugh. I’m incensed by this flagrant waste of my money, and I hope you are too. And they say phone sex is frivolous! I’d like to open a can of my most sadistic domination on those fools! I’d have them begging for forgiveness like the stupid worms they are! And then I’d charge them triple. ;p
xoxoxox
Sedussa
See this disgrace for yourself:
http://popularromanceproject.org/about/
Info on the money wasted:
http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=d204730e-4a24-4711-b1db-99bb6c29d4b6
Like this:
Like Loading...