Sep 14 2007
Some people want to be treated like children
There’s a great deal of hullabaloo (one example here) recently about slapping warning labels on romance novels because they may contain graphic sex or profanity or violence or any number of other things that might offend a reader’s delicate sensibilities.
(How about a warning label that says “The back cover copy is the best bit of writing in the whole book—don’t waste your money”? That’s one I could get behind, and it’s no more subjective a judgment than any source of potential offense.)
I think warning labels are a stupid idea (that’s the most tactful I can be about it), but as a public service, when my book is published, I will post its offensive statistics clearly on my web site. Here’s a sample:
Instances of the word “fuck”: 15
Instances of the word “cock”: 2 (not including occurrences such as “cocker spaniel,” “cocky,” and “cocktail”—I was a bit alarmed when it came up 17 times total! I know I don’t talk about that region that much)
Instances of the word “shit”: 15 (including “bullshit”)
Instances of the word “damn”: 34 (in all its conjugations)
Instances of the word “dammit”: 9
Instances of the word “bitch”: 19 total; only 1 referring to the heroine, as stated by the villain (and you can’t really expect better of him)
(That’s 94 curse words out of 100,000 total, or 0.094% of the word count, in case that’s the criteria we’re using to deem offensiveness.)
Slang terms for “vagina”: 0
Fellatio: 1
Vaginal penetration by penis: 2 (onscreen)
Heterosexual anal penetration: 0
Homosexual activity: 0
Rape: 0
Unwanted advances: 3 4 (How could I forget the licking incident?)
Violent deaths: 2-1/2 onscreen, though not graphically described; 117 offscreen (estimated)
Violence toward children: 0 (threatened but not fulfilled)
Miscellaneous: References to nontraditional theology
Have I overlooked any other potentially offensive material that needs to be red-flagged?
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9/30
11/4
11/4
11/25