Today, my friend Warnement was telling me about this funny website where owners shame their dogs. I was like, “Shave their dogs?” and he was like “Shame them,” and I was like, “Aha, Joe! I told you yesterday when they were talking about this on the radio in the car that the dj said ‘shamed’ and you were like, ‘he said shaved, why don’t you get the wax out of your ears?’ and look who is flying high now on a rainbow of promises. This foxy lady right here!”
There may have been a celebratory dance involved.
If you are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, there is a website where people submit photos, more like mugshots, if you will, of their guilty looking dogs beside hand written signs that explain what it was the dog did bad. Sometimes, the dog is pictured at the scene of the crime, or with evidence of his or her doggy wrong doing. Some of them don’t look guilty at all, which is even better. There is actually a chihuahua who looks like a hardened criminal facing a long sentence, but who has a tattoo of the Chinese character for YOLO. The site is here, but it’s not safe for work. The first link on the right hand side is of a woman getting her butthole tatooed. And apparently, she loved it. Emphasis mine.
You get the idea, right? Well, I decided that if it worked with dogs, it has to work with humans, right? And there are all these annoying things my husband does. So, I decided to call him out on them. And he was a great sport about it:
I shared this with my husband and threatened to do the same. He took it as an advice column. Now whenever he says he loves me I know to hold my breath. Or shove a dryer sheet in my face
Why are you still with him if he’s never read all of your books, let alone one, all the way through? If he really loved you, he would, and at the earliest possible opportunity. Not years and years later. It doesn’t matter if writing is your passion but not his. Out of love and respect for you, he should be putting forth real effort. If he can invest his time and interest in the children YOU went through nine months of hell to create, the very least he can do in return is read your books.
And before you accuse me of anything malicious, I can assure you that several other authors out there share my sentiments. In fact, none of this dawned on me UNTIL I read about it in one of Nora Roberts’ interviews back around 2002-2003.
Are you serious, or is this just really good sarcasm?
Wait, what the actual crap?! The not reading one is a dealbreaker; he seemed like a nice guy before but that’s just dickish.
Unless he just really hates that genre/your books
Sorry, guys, but your nerd fallacy is showing! This is just a case of “friends/partners/lovers don’t have to like all the same things”. And in fact, trying to force that ruins marriages.
I think it says much more of his SUPPORT for her that, even if he doesn’t like the genre, Jen’s husband reads HER erotic scenes in their play. That says he either finds it sexy himself, or knows she finds it sexy and cares about that (or both).
Super hot!
Problem is, there’s no indication of whether he just doesn’t like the genre (which one of the comments explicitly said was a valid reason). Maybe he does. Also, assuming all Jenny’s books are erotic romance is a super weird take? She’s said before that she wrote supernatural fantasy stuff prior to these recaps.
Plus, no one is saying he has to *like* the genre. Or even her books. I have a friend who really doesn’t like reading sex scenes or erotica who bought and read a book of erotica with one of my stories in it to support me. You can support someone’s work in a genre without liking the genre.
Of course, there’s valid reasons not to read your partner’s books, like just not being able to focus well enough to read a novel, fears of awkwardness in the bedroom afterward, or concerns about jealousy over Anthony Head. But it’s wrong to say that this would just be a matter of “not sharing the same interests”.
I mean I personally don’t have an opinion on the husband thing or think it’s a dealbreaker or anything, but your logic here is wrong.
Absolutely true that it’s cute as hell that he reads her stuff out loud to tease her, though.
Hmmm, okay, I think I identified what’s wrong here. This isn’t “nerd fallacy”; it’s “women/Afabs having good reason due to past experience to be very skeptical of or negative about husbands not appreciating their wives’ work”. (I know Jenny isn’t a wife, but she wasn’t out on her blog at this point). It’s like the Sweater Curse (look it up). Frequently boyfriends or husbands aren’t appreciative of things their wives/girlfriends put a ton of effort into, and that’s a huge red flag. From what I understand, Mr. Jen is not at all like that, and appreciates Jen’s writing even if he doesn’t read it, and supports her really well; but the women/afabs in the comments might not have read all those personal blog posts and might also, in general, just have had good reason to be suspicious of men who don’t seem interested in their afab spouses’ careers.