 all this garbage. This is one book so Jamie McGuire had to compact all the trash into one dumpster. She had to fit in that conflict then the multiple breaks ups and make ups, outrageous plotlines, fights, sex, jealousies, misunderstandings, and love triangles (probably) into one big trash fire.
 If Abby was addicted to meth, they would happily tell her how bad it is for her whilst pushing it on her. And America is the only other female in the “book” that isn’t a big slutty slut face. So don’t be surprised when the whole America flip flopping comes up again and again.
I find KY revolting. So gross. The one time I tried it, it stung so bad. Get Sliquid – any of them. Of course he’s too cheap to get the good stuff. And I’m surprised he has lube. Aren’t girls creaming all over themselves to jump on his dick?  I find it weird that he doesn’t have a favorite brand of condoms. I bet he’s grabbing a handful everytime he goes to the health clinic. The cheap part concerning, not the condoms themselves. If he were a broke student, then fine. But why can’t Mr Fight Club buy his one stuff? Maybe it’s just me, but Flying Rat have condoms, st home if not in her purse. I carried them with me before I had sex, just in case. And it that makes me a slut, then it makes me a responsible slut who wasn’t ready to have a baby and and didn’t want an STI.
Why can’t we ever have a book where someone other than the FMC hooked up with the MMC because he’s cute and nice (and he’s actually nice) because they wanted to, not because they thought it would lead to A RELATIONSHIP? Can’t any of the girls have sex because they like to have sex? Ugh. This is what got me into gay romance. It’s okay if the MCs have had sex with other guys and it’s usually not “OMFG he’s such a slut!”  
 I don’t know how you haven’t lit something on fire while reading it.
Yeah, they generally affect the man’s sensation more than the woman’s so you’d think he’d have tried a bunch and picked a favorite by now. I guess he could have some variety if he was concerned about allergic reactions, but since he doesn’t have a variety of lubes… well, I doubt that’s why. Your guess sounds pretty likely.
This is why I started writing Romance, specifically. 
Epic romances can start of with non-abusive behavior, too, you know.
Sliquid for the win.
Wrongly or rightly, when the lube in a story is K-Y, it always makes me think the author is old. Like calling margarine “oleo” or saying a pet needs to go through heat before being spayed. It reads outdated to me. 
 Why aren’t there girls who are having sex just for the fun?
I just want to say that, while I know it’s really common to try and get people to empathize, I REALLY hate it when people say ‘what if it was your daughter/mother/sister?!’ to get guys to care about women being mistreated. If you can only care about something based on its relation, and therefore reflection, to you, then you’re a shitty person. I don’t need to imagine something horrible happening to a family member in order to not want something horrible to happen to people. It bothers me.
It basically implies they’re like a pet because you can’t exactly understand what the animal is going through (although you could still sympathize anyway, on a fundamental level of pain and suffering) but you can definitely understand what the pet owner is dealing with if you’ve ever had a pet who died or was otherwise in a horrible situation. Maybe if people said “She’s somebody’s friend” they’d get the disconnect but probably not. “She’s a person; she deserves respect” should be the thing that gets said but I have a feeling assholes like this don’t care.
People who are abused by parents often seek a partner who reminds them of their parents. I have a feeling this isn’t accidental so much as feeding that desire and/or as others have noted, using without fully understanding or otherwise caring about some common tropes that have equally problematic origins.
But I also wonder if the evangelical subset of women just identify with the man for the freedom they so desire, but might not be bi so they don’t enjoy his capers as much, while identifying with the woman simply because she’s their obvious insert and what they know, in spite of not giving a shit about her any more than he does? That’s what it feels like to me since the men are always deeply glorified and traditionally desired the way the woman wants to be before the “reveal” that the guy loves and desires the insert.
I recognize that a lot of it is definitely conservative women who feel it’s ‘taboo’ to want the bad boy. They simultaneously want to indulge the taboo fantasy while still maintaining their more traditionally acceptable outward appearance. And that can lead to some weird and unhealthy dynamics just to get the plot going in those cases. But Travis’ behaviour here is very deliberate. This is calculated priming. He is grooming Abby. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right about the abuse, because this is… blatant. And distressing, as I’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of behaviour and it’s insidious.
It’s been a few weeks and he has her thinking about sex and him at the same time all the time, and defending him to the point of anger despite his constant abuse of her boundaries. And on top of that, I know everyone is going on and on about how she easily could have and should have refused to share a bed with him, but I’ve been in her shoes in that situation. Even if you legit want to say no and you’re not SCARED, you still feel like you don’t have a choice? I have a hard time explaining that to people who haven’t been through it, but it really does feel like you HAVE to. And the fact that he then makes her touch him to turn off the alarm, makes her get the pen from the place he keeps sex supplies (which he would have known full well was there and easily could have gotten the pen himself) and makes fun of her for being on top of him to turn off the alarm, he’s prepping her to feel like she’s the one who made the choice to sleep with him when in reality it will be 100% because he has been playing a long con to coerce her.
It really shows how even though women don’t legally belong to their male relatives/partners we are still treated as though we do.
Our value changes depending on who we are perceived as belonging too. A woman with a rich dad is going to be treated better than a woman with a poor dad. A woman with a bad husband is going to get her reputation ruined by being associated with him.
And how many women haven’t experienced men coming on to them even when they’ve repeatedly said no but they don’t back off until the woman mentions her male partner?
 In the first case someone takes a woman who society considers as already belonging to someone else (her father or significant other) while in the second, a man is doing things to someone who belongs to him.
Also, all the men who suddenly become “feminists” after having a daughter or having a long term relationship with a woman. A lot of them didn’t really have a sudden realization of how the patriarchy fucks over women. They just don’t want other men to treat the women they perceive as their’s the way they themselves have treated women.
Yes. Or they just don’t believe a man could do such a thing to his own family, but if he does see them as dehumanized, especially in this way, then, of course, he could. And people who buy into the “boys will be boys” trope feed into that since they’ll excuse anything as natural behavior when it’s all a choice.
I think the fear here is, if men can relate to women as people, and not just as daughters/sisters/mothers/whatever, then it makes men into women. Because if you can understand women, you must BE a woman. No, it doesn’t really make any sense, but I think it’s a common foundation of misogyny.
Or if men can understand women, then it all breaks down because women don’t need their specific man to run interference for them. Conservative Christianity is a lot like conservative Islam in that respect.
This might actually be the key to the appeal of this kind of book. It provides an emotional vacuum that allows readers to project their own feels, without needing to empathize with a different being. It’s analogous to omitting a physical description so readers can picture themselves in the story. It’s lazy. It’s hollow. Just like the audience. People should want better things. But, here we are.
I think you’re on to something but then again, some of it might be about how they’ve glamorized the heroine being passive… Abby can’t be wrong if she’s just going along with the narrative without any introspection! And examining how she