Thanks to a certain person who may or may not have an alter ego known as Tito, I have recently discovered slash fic. If you’ve been living under a rock or having a life outside the interwebz (in which case, what the fuck are you doing reading my blog?) and don’t know what slash fic is, I suggest you Google the term. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m going to hell. But, if I’m going so is Tito and the authors of said slash fic, damn it! Sweet … maybe we can party there …
Anyway, laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of this stuff today brought to mind my first encounter with smutty fiction. So I thought I’d share because I’m in a share-y mood and, hell, I can’t think of any other topic to blog about. 😀
At the innocent young age of 13 (or maybe 12?) I found Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children series. It started out innocent enough. Clan of the Cave Bear was tame (apart from the rape scene which, in my innocence, I completely glossed over without really processing what was going on). I liked the movie so I read the book. You see, I was very, very innocent. Did I mention that I was innocent? Yeah, there was a lot of shit in that book that went totally over my head. Anyway, I then went on to read the rest of the series which, as I got older and read more, didn’t go over my head as much. I learned stuff. Oh, I learned stuff. In fact, I believe those books were the way I found out exactly *where* the penis was supposed to go. It took me till the second book to get that, btw. Yeah, innocent. Innocent and a little stupid and a lot naive. Anyway, the point is … I eventually got the point. And then I learned more stuff. *snigger* Educational, that series. 🙂
And, hey, as educations go it wasn’t a bad one. Ayla’s a strong, ass kicking woman who invents the bra, the spear thrower (she had help from her man for that), using pyrite and flint to start fires, domesticates the first horse, invents the freaking needle and manages to be the best cook & medicine woman the world has ever seen on top of being a minx in bed with the most well endowed man ever to live. Most of the books describe the matriarchal society of Cro-Magnon humans (Auel’s romanticized idea of it at any rate). So, yeah, I could have had a worse smutty series of books to start on.
Note that I was reading these back when most of my peers were barely past picture books. What can I say? I went to a public school in New Jersey. Anyway, I was pretty much the only person I knew reading these books at the time … which, I think, is how I got away with reading them to be perfectly honest. You see, no one had any idea of the education I was getting … least of all my parents.
After 8th grade, my parents split up and we moved to Washington State where I met Kim (everybody say hi to Kim!). At some point Kim and I discovered that we’d both read the infamous series. Immediately we had running jokes about mammoths, Jondalar’s *ahem* talents and the fact that Ayla supposedly invented most of the technologies that set Cro-Magnon humans apart from their cousins, the Neanderthals. We laughed till we cried over certain *cough* scenes in the books and nicknamed the fourth book The Plains of Passion rather than it’s true title of The Plains of Passage because… Well, let’s just say the book is all about a big, long journey in prehistoric times. There wasn’t much else to do but shag … and Ayla and Jondalar do … a lot … about every 5 pages. It’s a LOOOOOOOOOOONG book.
At some point there was a gathering at Kim’s house consisting of a lot of angsty, bored teenagers and no adult supervision. That happened a lot during my youth, actually. It’s a wonder I got out of the whole thing as relatively pure as I did, to be honest. Anyway, back to the point … Kim and I, once again, were laughing about The Plains of Passion and the mammoths (I still can’t even write about it without sniggering!). Finally Amy gets curious enough to ask us what the fuck we are on about. The book gets taken out and shown to Amy. We laugh about how “gross” it is, etc. Amy starts flipping through, finds a scene (not hard, it happens every 5 pages) and the following occurs:
Amy: OMG! You’re right! This book is DISGUSTING!
Kim & I: Yeah, it’s hilarious. *histerical laughter*
40 minutes or so later ….
Kim & I : Um, where’s Amy? *looking around*
We find Amy huddled in a corner, reading intently, flipping pages, then reading intently again. We tease her mercilessly.
Ah, the memories. Here’s to Jean M. Auel, educating naive young women everywhere and here’s to Ayla for … well, being the super woman of prehistoric humans. Oh, and while I’m at it … here’s to Kim for sharing the laughter with me over such an educational series of books. 😉
So, what was your first smutty book? Come on, spill!
By the time I read those, I was old enough to actually be
disappointed that the second one (I thought)
“degenerated” into nothing but smut. But I should mention that I now have the complete set. In Norwegian. That’s probably to justify owning them. It’s intellectual!
I can’t even remember my first smutty book. I’m certain it was a lot earlier than 12 or 13, though.
…but now that I think of it, it seems like I read the neighbors’ copy of “The Total Woman” while babysitting. Now that’s a downer, isn’t it? Still, I recovered. I hope.
No! Wait! The Crystal Cave. Though I have no idea now what was in it. Probably something I’d consider really tame.
I know there were more before that. Oh great, now I’ll probably remember them. Thanks a lot for un-repressing my memories!
Hahaha .. you were disappointed. How intellectual of you. 🙂
Norwegian? Um, why? I can understand if they were originally written in Norwegian but … Auel is American, isn’t she?
My mom had some kind of Danielle Steel type book that had a rather racy love scene in it. I remember flipping it open when I was about 12 and finding it. So intriguing! The next thing I read was probably the Penthouse letters collection book I found under my bed of the first place I stayed after leaving home (I was 16).
And I used to write my own smut – really! – although it was never very good 😉
No, just a purist. Apparently I like my smut separately.
I went to school in Norway for a while; now I collect books in Norwegian to keep my hand in. If they’re cheep n trashy, it’s easier to read them.
Ah yes, I remember that evening well. Amy’s eyes were just about popping out of her head.
Auel… did she really have to write a mammoth sex scene? Wasn’t that just a little over the top?
Did you ever read the book after Plains? I never got around to it, and now that I don’t have my parents to steal from I don’t know where to get it without exposing myself as a prehistoric smut reader 😉 I have to keep up my prudish facade.
In the end, it looks like Ayla was one of my role models. Here I am now, a maternity nurse who loves herbal medicine, camping, primitive skills, and plant identification, and not too shabby in the sack, so I hear…
Kim … You …. Prudish … BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA …. *breathes* …. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *wipes tears from eyes*
Yes, I read the last one. It wasn’t that great from memory … but then, neither was Plains of Passion (aside from the gratuitous smut which, admittedly, got kind of old by that point).
And, don’t you see? She *had* to write a mammoth sex scene so Ayla and Jondalar could invent porn … or beastiality … or … I dunno, cause Auel has a thing for hot mammoth sex? 🙂
So, you’re Ayla (gee, didn’t see *that* coming) … Does that make Eriko *cough* Jondalar? 😉
Well… he’s an acupuncturist and herbalist (didn’t Jondalar do a little of that? Maybe Ayla taught him), and I’ve seen him hunt rabbits (not with a spear thrower, exactly…) and eaten them after he skinned and gutted them… but that’s not a common event… And although Erico is found of making sculptures, he hasn’t ever made flint spearheads… but he’s a teacher and a good leader… so, yeah, he’s a little Jondalar-y…
(Thankfully, he wasn’t cast out from his clan for falling in love with his sex ed teacher…)
I met someone named Ayla the other day. She pronounces her name “Eye-la.” Is that how you heard it in your head? I always thought it was “ay” as in “say.”
You’d be surprised how tame I am… or seem to be these days. With all the crazy polyamory going on in Portland, you would have thought that I would be stringing along 5 lovers of various genders and genitalias by now… but instead I’m all humdrum monogamous.
That’s not exactly what I was *cough* referring to …
Ok, things have changed when *my* mind is more in the gutter than Kim’s … 😉
Okay we are too much alike :). I started reading them around early teens as well. Difference is I knew what the topics where about :). Between this series and Pern (yes there is soft smut in there – mating flights of the dragons/fire lizards :)) would be my first smut.
My mother knew I was reading them (she handed me the first one to read after reading it herself :)). In fact I think it was the third book came out around Christmas and it was one of my presents. I spend the day reading it before my mother was allowed to borrow it to read :).
Now waiting (again) for the next book in the series 🙂 (hopefully it is only two to go now).
Another one? I’d figured she just gave up and finished writing them? You mean we get more of Jondalar’s huge … um, brain? 🙂 Auel must be in her 70’s by now … I don’t want to think of a 70+ year old writing smut. LOL
Yeah – re-read the intro to Shelters of Stone, there are at least 2 more books in her mind for it. I check http://www.ecfans.com/ every few months for updates on book 6.
Knowing that there is another book explains why Shelters finishes the way it does – it is a two part story in a bigger story.
I hope I can still think sexy when I’m in my 70s!
yep, cut my teeth on these too. except i knew exactly what she was on about. even with the mammoths. i watched alot of nature docos, what can i say?
another early smut one i remember stealing from my mother was Woman of Cairo by Noel Barber. I took it to my grandmother’s house when i stayed overnight and she confiscated it, stuck post it notes in all the pages with smut and sent me home to my mother with a massive lecture!rofl!
ah, good times….
Don’t worry. I caught on *very* quickly by the time the smut of the second book started up so way before the mammoth porn. 🙂
Tito hasn’t even given you any true SLASH yet. Slash would be, say Doctor/Master. Or Doctor/Jack. Or Doctor/Doctor. Tito has been kind, and only passed on the tame het smut so far. Tito likes having repeat customers. Tito knows how important it is to ease the uninitiated onto his product.
Tito is twisted. 🙂
LOL I saw this on twitter the other day, but needed the work computer to read the blog – the joys of no internet since the storm!!
I loved this series! I was a late teen when I read it so I knew the ahem, ins and outs. I was shocked that a book had all that in such detail! LOL. I was rather naive and innocent. A friend of mine has since totally corrupted me. And she takes full responsibility for me now not even batting an eyelash at some of the stuff I never even knew existed back then!
These books were the first smut I read too! At my school library, you could pick a copy up and it would obligingly open to a sex scene, so well-thumbed were those pages! I actually think the librarians knew why we were all so suddenly fascinated by prehistoric fiction. I like to think they thought it was better that than the crappy sex ed classes we got.
Forever by Judy Blume.
Whoa, wait a minute … Judy Blume wrote SMUT? What rock have I been living under?
Oh yeah! Forgot about the JB.