Transcript
Speaker: We're doing some weird weenies.
Speaker: Thank you, Ingrid, for that.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Smut Report!
Speaker: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Smut Report podcast, here for all your smut reading needs and, like, just weird takes.
Speaker: That's us.
Speaker: Anyway, I'm Holly.
Speaker: I'm Erin.
Speaker: I'm Ingrid.
Speaker: Hey, dang it, Erin.
Speaker: I'm Ingrid.
Speaker: And anyway, today, we've been saying we were going to do this episode for like, I don't know, a long time.
Speaker: We've been teasing it for a while.
Speaker: But here now we are finally doing our episode on weird genitalia in romance novels.
Speaker: Except to be fair, it's not comprehensive.
Speaker: It's only penises.
Speaker: We decided to narrow the scope.
Speaker: Anyway, so I'm introducing this because I'm pretty sure this was my idea.
Speaker: So sorry, guys.
Speaker: You did it to us.
Speaker: Mainly, sorry, Ingrid.
Speaker: It was so mean.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I love you.
Speaker: We like to stretch our brains a little bit.
Speaker: Did we?
Speaker: Did we, though?
Speaker: Is that what we stretched?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Is that what we stretched?
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Too soon.
Speaker: Too soon.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So together we read four books and we'll post in the show notes a little summary of each because we're not going to get into the books a lot except for talking about the weird penises in them.
Speaker: So yeah, the show notes will be at smutreport.com slash podcast if you want all the juicy details about whether or not you want to read these books.
Speaker: But what we read were Muscles and Monsters by Ashley Bennett, Strange Love by Anna Guire,
Speaker: Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon and Shielded Heart by Tiffany Roberts or Robert?
Speaker: I think it's Roberts.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Roberts, I think.
Speaker: Although, interestingly, that is a husband and wife writing duo and their names are Tiffany and Robert.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: And that's why I thought maybe it's Tiffany Robert, but whatever.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So just a quick note on why we chose those books.
Speaker: So I nominated Ice Planet Barbarians and Strange Love.
Speaker: So I'll talk about those two, and then I'll let Aaron and Ingrid take over with the other two.
Speaker: So I thought maybe we should read Ice Planet Barbarians together.
Speaker: Ingrid and I had both already read it.
Speaker: And I know Aaron had read other stuff by Ruby Dixon, but I think not –
Speaker: the Ice Planet things.
Speaker: And I picked this because it's kind of a, it's like a kind of a standard ridged for her pleasure kind of situation going on here.
Speaker: And, you know, there's been like a big uptick in the past five years of weird dicks and romance and like monster romance and all this fun stuff.
Speaker: But Ice Planet Barbarians was kind of at the front edge of this,
Speaker: If we don't count all the weird dicks that happened in the 90s, which we did not get into at all.
Speaker: We didn't read any of the old ones.
Speaker: Oh, dang.
Speaker: Too bad.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: You're really disappointed that we did – I am actually disappointed that we didn't combine my two favorite things, weird penises and bodice rippers, like all together in the same time.
Speaker: But anyway, that's why I picked Ice Planet Barbarians.
Speaker: And it's kind of like an intro, right?
Speaker: to the world of weird dick like it's it's definitely entry level yeah entry level and it's super ubiquitous it's you know it had a huge tick tock surge you can get it anywhere it's kind of like if you mixed avatar with a vibrator yeah i mean that's really what it is it's very mild correct yes exactly and it was it became so popular that berkeley bought it
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So now you can get it in fancy special edition.
Speaker: You can get it in fancy.
Speaker: My library has it in Spanish.
Speaker: All kinds of fun stuff.
Speaker: Accessible.
Speaker: It's super accessible.
Speaker: And then I also nominated Strange Love because that's like the weirdest weird sex book I've ever read in my life.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Ingrid is so mad about it.
Speaker: And I'm pretty sure Aaron loved it.
Speaker: No, I thought it was fantastic.
Speaker: Somebody on Twitter was like, this is the queerest book I've ever read.
Speaker: Which, if you look at it, you might not think so, because it's technically MF romance, but he is so alien.
Speaker: Yeah, we can get into it later.
Speaker: We can get into it later.
Speaker: But I would categorize this as under the inspired by actual nature subgenre of weird stuff going on.
Speaker: So why don't you guys talk about the other two books we read and why we picked them?
Speaker: So when we were discussing what we were looking for...
Speaker: In a representative sample, I brought up nodding because that comes up a lot.
Speaker: I mean, we even read one when we were talking about monsters a couple years ago.
Speaker: Yeah, so that was a winged embrace by S.J.
Speaker: Sanders way back when.
Speaker: That was definitely a... That was also weird.
Speaker: He's like a feathered alien.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Oh, is that the one where he had the little spaghetti things?
Speaker: Yes, and the spaghetti things.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, we've been here before.
Speaker: But so Muscles and Monsters is one.
Speaker: It's got a very cute cartoon cover.
Speaker: It's part of a series full of very cutesy kind of things that has been on my radar for a while.
Speaker: And apparently the first book has...
Speaker: nodding in it because the the hero is a werewolf basically like a wolf he's a wolf man different from a werewolf never turns human shift there's no shifting and uh for ingrid in her face
Speaker: I'm just not okay.
Speaker: Okay, we'll get into this later.
Speaker: But so that was we were like, okay, well, we can all read that because nobody wanted to read Omegaverse, which is like plentiful with knots, except for me.
Speaker: I've already read quite a few.
Speaker: And then the last one we chose was Shielded Heart by Tiffany Roberts.
Speaker: I was forced into this choice.
Speaker: So I went on Reddit because obviously this is not my usual genre.
Speaker: It's not an ingredient that I seek in romance novels.
Speaker: So I went on Reddit and I was like, oh, I found this book and it has...
Speaker: a weird split penis and I was like oh that sounds like it's too far and Aaron and Holly were like perfect let's do it so it definitely wasn't like I can't wait to read this book it was like oh god what have we done but we read it so
Speaker: Yeah, so I mean, what we have, inspired by nature, but very weird, like ridged for her pleasure, not.
Speaker: And then the Tiffany, I mean, the Tiffany Roberts is like, like Ingrid said, split, but it's also like a cock pocket.
Speaker: It's like prehensile.
Speaker: And there's a tail.
Speaker: There's a lot going on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That one has humanoid features, but is maybe stretching the boundaries of what's going on with a penis.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Just because I needed to process what I went through the last 24 hours.
Speaker: Because yes, I avoided this like the goddamn plague.
Speaker: And so I literally started reading these books yesterday morning.
Speaker: And I did it.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And I'm not, I am basically changed forever because of this experience.
Speaker: But in order to process, I did draw pictures of all of them.
Speaker: So I'm going to share them with you in whatever order you'd like to see them.
Speaker: Put them in the show notes, everyone.
Speaker: All right, Ingrid.
Speaker: Well, let's start with Ice Planet Barbarians because that's what Holly started with.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Here it is.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: About right.
Speaker: Now, you'll appreciate that I put exclamation points around it if it moved.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it was alarming.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was the entry-level one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now we have, in order of Disturbia... In order of Disturbia.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: The nodding.
Speaker: I could not fit it.
Speaker: I like the hair.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Well, he's a hairy man.
Speaker: They mentioned it a lot in the book, so I felt it needed to be included.
Speaker: I mean, he's a wolf.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A wolf.
Speaker: And now...
Speaker: Now we get to the fun part.
Speaker: Moving plates with drippy holes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the one that will haunt my dreams for the rest of time.
Speaker: I would like to know how you illustrated this because this one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I feel like that one wasn't described.
Speaker: Did I miss something?
Speaker: I felt like.
Speaker: The Tiffany Roberts wasn't described like very explicitly.
Speaker: It was just described as like when it was doing stuff.
Speaker: So it's like, right.
Speaker: Then the tendrils like moved apart and reached for things and like moved back together.
Speaker: It's like, so what is happening here?
Speaker: To explain it to you, because I went back for my picture because I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss anything because I am nothing if not thorough.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: For you.
Speaker: Thank you for your service.
Speaker: It turns out that when he gets excited, it's like split little octopus tentacles.
Speaker: But then when it's time for the deed, it slaps into a solid dick.
Speaker: I think you have to grab it.
Speaker: You have to grab it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then it all.
Speaker: But that's why he was like, oh, the first time he showed it to her, he was just like, admire me in all my glory.
Speaker: And she's like, ah!
Speaker: and then he's like oh i probably should have grabbed it a little bit you know what i mean because he could have turned it into like one piece of equipment instead of four autonomous beings yes flipping around and being wiggly and terrifying so and he but he didn't think of that because that guy has his head up his butt like 24 7 but anyway yeah so just a disclaimer before we start talking about um
Speaker: weird dicks and why we love them or don't don't we uh we're not gonna get into a lot of the details of these books um because i feel like we could have a whole two hour long discussion about all the red flags in shielded heart oh like so many but i mean that book was just like holy bananas like everything about their relationship was awful except for maybe their sex life
Speaker: which we can discuss.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: I also feel like, let's be realistic here, not all the books, like obviously not all, this is not a generalization that we should like make a sweepingly, but sometimes it seems like some of these books, like the plots really kind of not the point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's for the titillation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, this is not about the romance.
Speaker: So, anyway.
Speaker: I feel like that was especially evident in Muscles and Monsters.
Speaker: Because I was texting you guys from the beginning and I was being like, I'm on chapter four.
Speaker: They've masturbated three times.
Speaker: And they've talked to each other like once or twice.
Speaker: I was just like, what?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, and I thought Muscles and Monsters was interesting because there's some stuff in there about male, like, low self-esteem around bodies, and he's like a supercut Jembro.
Speaker: But I apparently am the only one of us who has never before read a romance novel featuring, like, a dumb Jembro as the hero.
Speaker: You're missing out, Holly.
Speaker: I'm not missing out.
Speaker: It was like 0% surprising.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was like, whoa, I've never read a hero like this.
Speaker: I mean, because mainly I don't find heroes like that super attractive in real life.
Speaker: But I guess I also don't find like overbearing mafia guys attractive in real life.
Speaker: So anyway.
Speaker: Anyway, I just think it's really interesting, Holly, that like literally every single page hammered home that this guy had a furry snout.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what you're like.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's the Jim bro thing.
Speaker: Like.
Speaker: well really okay fine you're right i've never read a book where the werewolf stayed a wolf all the time either but like literally she was like it would be really hard to make out with him because i'd have to take his whole snout into my mouth is that what i i think for that my brain was like yeah i'm just not i can't i'm just not gonna like i'm like that's like making out with my dog like that's gross like i'm not gonna do that
Speaker: I think my brain blocked that part.
Speaker: It was not okay.
Speaker: My brain blocked that part.
Speaker: So I think because I was just like Jim bro.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Jim.
Speaker: Like, and he would like, he'd like put his like baseball cap on and then pull his ears out.
Speaker: Put his ears through it.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: Like, that's so adorable.
Speaker: That's very adorable.
Speaker: guys it's adorable like a dog wearing a baseball cap it's not adorable like that gets me going yeah i mean he's a delicious snack no he's not a delicious snack kept on wagging it was very i mean okay i would just like to remind you that this is like exactly the same as the conversation we had about the minotaur oh whatever but like every time his tail started wagging i also i was like oh it's like bluey
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Can't do that.
Speaker: We're not going to ruin that for me.
Speaker: That is sacred.
Speaker: No more.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: I thought that one did do a good job of, so that was Muscles and Masters, did do a good job of like tying into like canine behaviors.
Speaker: And it was meant to be cute and sexy.
Speaker: Like that was the point of the book, right?
Speaker: Very like zero angst.
Speaker: Like her brother came into play like he was going to be a bad dude and then nothing happened there.
Speaker: But apparently book two is about her brother.
Speaker: So I thought book two was about...
Speaker: it's about her brother and then book three is about her mom i mean why not good love everybody deserves love but uh i i will not be continuing this series but no i was gonna say since i'm probably the i don't want to say this since i'm like the nodding expert oh god
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Well, that's true, though.
Speaker: You go ahead and wear that title proudly, Erin.
Speaker: I thought it was interesting that in Muscles and Monsters, so nodding, just for a little background for funsies here, nodding actually comes from, like, what is it, canid?
Speaker: Canine animals do not.
Speaker: They have a knot.
Speaker: It swells.
Speaker: It can swell with just any sort of like excitement, I guess.
Speaker: But it's like meant to swell during intercourse in order to...
Speaker: lock the male in the female.
Speaker: And apparently the female canine has a sort of unique... I don't know how unique, but unique set of muscles as well that is designed to hold onto it as well.
Speaker: So it's not quite what the stuff you might be working with looks like.
Speaker: So that's where it comes from.
Speaker: And I don't know if you caught... It swells.
Speaker: It's not constantly there.
Speaker: And that's what I've read normally.
Speaker: Normally...
Speaker: We'll see if we get this far, but I was going to write a little between the sheets post called Pop It Like It's Not.
Speaker: Oh my god, Aaron.
Speaker: Oh dude, Aaron.
Speaker: We talk about nodding a little bit more.
Speaker: But usually that's what they just tried.
Speaker: They're like, the knot pops.
Speaker: It happens during intercourse, not before.
Speaker: But the hero in Muscles and Monsters, his knot is part of his normal arousal all the time.
Speaker: So I thought that was interesting and slightly unique in that it wasn't something that...
Speaker: popped later on when he was closer to ejaculation it was something that was constantly a feature that is definitely not common in yeah because he just it's like they're going and then he had to like push it in and i was like oh god because i i feel like i haven't read a lot but the ones that i have read the two that i've read maybe it's like he's in and then the knot happens yeah and so there's not the and then you wait for the knot to go down
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's just like for feeling real full, not for.
Speaker: Ingrid's face is hilarious.
Speaker: She's so grossed out.
Speaker: It's just like, listen, like I y'all can do you do you you just be strange.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: All you little weird penis people.
Speaker: That's that's fine.
Speaker: My thing I think what I realized was that I need I need more anthropomorphizing.
Speaker: Like that's fair.
Speaker: That is the line for me.
Speaker: It's just, I understand that these are two very clearly consenting creatures in these books.
Speaker: Like, I'm not saying it's, like, wrong.
Speaker: But what I'm saying is that, like, we process these books by identifying with them.
Speaker: And I'm so sorry, but I have a goddamn dog.
Speaker: Like, I can't read about this because I have a dog.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Also, you know, when the penises are really weird, it's like worms.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Octopi tentacles.
Speaker: This is what I'm identifying with.
Speaker: And it takes me right out.
Speaker: And I'm like, this is terrible.
Speaker: This is the worst thing ever.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: This is terrible.
Speaker: It's ruining this for me.
Speaker: And I get really stressed out about it.
Speaker: So apparently that's the line in the sand is like, if it's not anthropomorphized enough, like, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I get that the...
Speaker: strange love book has some interesting things going on in it.
Speaker: And like, great.
Speaker: So great.
Speaker: Let me just give you a list of the words that I've decided that are a hard pass for me if I ever see them in a sex scene ever again.
Speaker: Can I share this with you?
Speaker: Muzzle, snout, spermatophores, mandible, and the worst one, prehensile tendrils.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Never again.
Speaker: Ever.
Speaker: I mean, I feel like... I will search the book for those words before I read them.
Speaker: I feel like that's totally fair.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I mean, that's 100% fair.
Speaker: I need way more anthropomorphizing than that.
Speaker: So, like, Ice Planet Barbarians works for you?
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's about as far as I can go.
Speaker: Whenever it gets to a point where there's something that's very, very clearly anatomically...
Speaker: Not our species, right?
Speaker: And it's to the point where comparing it is very clearly not something that I can gloss over.
Speaker: Like, there have been books – I've read more of these than I'd like to admit because of this blog –
Speaker: Because I read a whole bunch of weird ones.
Speaker: And I, you know, the one that I just read that was a shifter book, they had a baculum in it.
Speaker: And apparently that's a real thing that now I know about that I didn't want to know about.
Speaker: A baculum is very similar to a...
Speaker: It's where boner comes from.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's an actual bone.
Speaker: And it does the same thing as that donut of doom.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That we talked about.
Speaker: It's just a bone instead.
Speaker: And it's legit.
Speaker: Like it's a real thing.
Speaker: So anyway.
Speaker: terrifying but anyway the point is is like so i've read a bunch of them and it's almost like if you can kind of pretend it's not two different species then i'm usually like okay but the second that it's very clear especially like in the sex scenes and stuff almost the author goes out of their way to include like mandible this is an insect this is a giant armored insect that we're talking about here the
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, so that's the boundary apparently I have, is that I just cannot.
Speaker: Okay, so here's a question for you.
Speaker: So in Ice Planet Barbarians, she's like, she compares it like explicitly to her rabbit vibrator.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So is that cool for you?
Speaker: Or is that like, yes, because it doesn't toe the line on bestiality.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like that's a vibrator.
Speaker: Okay, so you're like, okay, this is okay, because this could just be
Speaker: a guy using a rabbit on me and like, sure.
Speaker: And it doesn't bother me at all.
Speaker: Like if, if it's like human adjacent, so like humans have different bodies, if the different bodies are kind of, you know, it's almost like how it's referred.
Speaker: If it's referred to using very clearly animal body parts, I have, I can't, it makes it really hard for me.
Speaker: But if it's just like, this is just a human with a different body.
Speaker: I'm like, cool.
Speaker: Sounds great.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Like different bodies are great, but it, it's literally just the way it's described.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I have a problem with.
Speaker: So like in Ice Planet Barbarians, like they were aliens, but they were very much referred to like they were, they had their descriptions of their body parts were very much human.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They have arms and legs and hands and horns and tails.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But they looked very humanoid.
Speaker: Yes, they looked very humanoid.
Speaker: They behaved in a very human way.
Speaker: Like they had some stuff going on, but like if she wasn't talking about his tail or his horns or how suede soft his skin was.
Speaker: Like it didn't feel that.
Speaker: And he has like eyebrow ridges, but you're like, oh, okay.
Speaker: Like, whatever.
Speaker: That's in Star Trek.
Speaker: Like all the aliens in Star Trek just look like humans with like weird face paint.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: When you're talking, when it's a touching moment and they're like, I reached out and grabbed his claw.
Speaker: That's kind of like...
Speaker: I don't even care.
Speaker: It doesn't matter how many fingers they have.
Speaker: If they're fingers, it's fine.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like, not all people have five fingers.
Speaker: Shit happens.
Speaker: So, like, you know, whatever.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, I thought it was interesting.
Speaker: Just sort of tangent from penis stimulation.
Speaker: Claws.
Speaker: And those not being comfortable going in certain things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I thought it was interesting.
Speaker: Two of our four books had that, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And it's very common in other places.
Speaker: And actually, wait, in one of these books, or was it one of the other books that I was reading, the clawed person got some prosthesis to put over his clawed.
Speaker: Yeah, that's in Strange Love.
Speaker: That's in Strange Love.
Speaker: At the very end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I was like this.
Speaker: So it's like good ways to overcome it and still be able to like work around it.
Speaker: That's one.
Speaker: And then the only other time that I have read the claw being like taken out of the equation intentionally is in the dragon series that I read by Ruby Dixon, where like the dragons intentionally bit their claws off so that they could stimulate the women that they were with, even though in dragon culture, that was like,
Speaker: you're not supposed to lose your claws.
Speaker: Like having claws and having fierceness is like part of being like the alpha dragon kind of thing.
Speaker: But that seems like it would be more like long fingernails than, yeah?
Speaker: The claws that they bite off?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like click, click, click, click.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they were like fingernails.
Speaker: But I thought that was-
Speaker: Sorry, Ingrid.
Speaker: Anyway, I just that struck me as well as like, you know, it's not just I think we collectively use like genitals.
Speaker: Yes, but also hands and mouths to stimulate each other and kind of taking hands out of the equation by putting
Speaker: Something that would potentially cut or tear the skin of your partner, you know, adds a layer of complication to the experience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of authors seem to add it, but then ignore it almost.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I want to go back to what Ingrid was saying, though, about how, you know, it's like how anthropomorphized it is, is kind of where her line is, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I feel like for me, most of the time when I read...
Speaker: stuff like this.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: It's because I'm like, I'm looking for something really weird, but not to read really as a romance.
Speaker: I guess I think this is more of my like, my background in reading sci fi.
Speaker: And I'm like, I want my aliens to be super weird.
Speaker: I feel like a lot of time I'm a little disappointed because I'm like, Oh, man, if you'd only look to nature, there's like so much weird shit you could have done.
Speaker: Like, no, I recently read a Naga romance, which is like a snake man.
Speaker: And I was like, well, this is a missed opportunity because snakes have two penises.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, that's where my mind goes.
Speaker: I'm like, if you're gonna make one of your characters an alien, then I want you to make it an alien.
Speaker: And then it's not, and then for me, it's like less about the titillation and more about how can these people find a way to like communicate and work together with like vastly different like frames of reference is kind of where I'm at.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: I think it's because I recently...
Speaker: This is a nonfiction book.
Speaker: It's called Bitch on the Female of the Species by Lucy Cook.
Speaker: And it's mostly about how evolutionary biology has been shaped by unconscious gender bias.
Speaker: But like as a fun side thing to her main thesis, she does talk about a lot of fun dicks in nature.
Speaker: And I'm just like, man, look at all these fun things in nature that people just aren't using in romance novels.
Speaker: What a disappointment.
Speaker: We are not the same.
Speaker: No, I think I agree with Holly that –
Speaker: I find it... Well, okay, maybe up to a point.
Speaker: I thought it was really interesting in Strange Love that it wasn't about weird genitals.
Speaker: It was like, I have an emotional connection with this guy.
Speaker: Like, he kidnaps her, basically.
Speaker: Basically, he kidnaps her.
Speaker: It was like, was it this...
Speaker: So he thinks he's doing one thing.
Speaker: He ends up kidnapping her.
Speaker: He knows that she's not the person that he was going to meet up with, but he's like, okay.
Speaker: And so he has this plan and she ends up just being taken along for the ride.
Speaker: But in the course of doing... So he's already going through the process, right?
Speaker: Like he understands...
Speaker: what his cultural expectations are.
Speaker: And like, he thinks, what if she leaves me for one of the other competitors?
Speaker: Like somebody else could sweep her off her feet.
Speaker: And her perspective is, this is a guy like, yeah, we started off this way, but it is what it is.
Speaker: And he's been respectful to me.
Speaker: He's the only one who's been respectful to me or remotely considerate in my entire experience here.
Speaker: So why would I...
Speaker: want to talk to anybody else.
Speaker: And I thought that emotional connection combined with the curiosity about how they could be sexually compatible was what made that conversation interesting.
Speaker: And then the fact that it's like based on a real insect, which
Speaker: link to in the show notes makes it more interesting but there are sometimes when i'm like okay you source this like the naga okay if it's a naga with a so it's a snake man with a snake penis that tracks yeah but i've read one where it's like a demon with a split penis and that's like a split penis and they're both like 18 inches long and like who wants an 18 inch long anything
Speaker: Nobody.
Speaker: Nobody.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, like sometimes it's like, I'd rather just let it go and be just like purely creative.
Speaker: And sometimes it is fun.
Speaker: But if it's too realistic, and it doesn't hit in some of these other notes, then it just feels like, oh, you just sourced it from science, but like didn't necessarily...
Speaker: I don't know, put in the work?
Speaker: No, you want it more realistic, Erin?
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: You guys are crazy.
Speaker: I think we're talking about there's different kinds of things going on here, right?
Speaker: Because I read Ice Planet Barbarians in a very different way than I read Strange Love and for very different things.
Speaker: And I think we're talking about very different things that weird penis books do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because I think, you know, I think there's the let's be weird side of things.
Speaker: And then there's let's be fun to make it sexier side of things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's a limit to that, too.
Speaker: Or it has to be done here.
Speaker: I mean, Ingrid, you're like, it has to be more realistic.
Speaker: It's not even that.
Speaker: It's just it has to be, I don't know, thought of in a more holistic way, maybe because I've read tentacle stuff where it's like lots of tentacles as opposed to just like a couple tentacles.
Speaker: But if the author isn't using like all the tentacles in creative ways, then it's just like hands and who cares?
Speaker: If that makes sense.
Speaker: Like, if you're not using it in a different way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, so, okay.
Speaker: I feel like, I, okay.
Speaker: I feel like we should talk about the penis that's going to haunt all our nightmares, which is the, the bifurcated.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: The shielded heart bifurcated situation.
Speaker: Because I feel like that one is trying to be, let's add these features to make it more sexy.
Speaker: And it went too far into weirdness.
Speaker: It did.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I actually...
Speaker: It all slaps together and forms like one unified thing.
Speaker: And then it gets stuck inside her for a little while.
Speaker: So that's basically similar to nodding.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And then when he ejaculates, it splits back into four and each one latch onto it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it gets stuck inside her.
Speaker: To spread out her cervix.
Speaker: So I think there's one thing we're missing is sometimes it's there for her pleasure and extra titillation for the reader.
Speaker: And sometimes it's there for the breeding imperative, which I think is a
Speaker: different kind of titillation for the reader yes reading is a different thing i do not like okay so okay so it's interesting i mean when you describe it like that holly yeah and honestly when i was reading it i was like that doesn't sound good like i don't want anything latched inside of there
Speaker: but no but but in practice i felt like it wasn't doing it like it wasn't maybe this is the issue it wasn't like stimulating in a unique way it was it was just being weird yeah so it was kind of like it was weird but it wasn't even doing anything special to like make it more magical weirdness yeah
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like if you want a prehensile bifurcation, you want to be able to have like bonus G-spot stimulation.
Speaker: Is that what you're saying?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or like movement inside.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like a piston situation.
Speaker: Ingrid.
Speaker: Ingrid.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: No, here's what it is.
Speaker: It's DP.
Speaker: That's what it is.
Speaker: It needs to be more like DP, right?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You got two things going on in there at the same time.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: Just no more of this.
Speaker: This is so not cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So let's stop talking about the details for a minute.
Speaker: Give Ingrid a break.
Speaker: I'm getting such a headache right now.
Speaker: And so let's go back to maybe the three different things we're doing.
Speaker: Some is just like titillating and fun to read because it's like whatever.
Speaker: Some is like let's just like
Speaker: pushed the boundaries of weirdness for science and some is breeding imperative stuff well so i think that muscles and monsters is for titillation do we agree yeah yeah i think that strange love is science i think that ice planet barbarians it's just it's titillation and breeding yeah because overcoming the
Speaker: Species barrier is such a fundamental component of that book.
Speaker: And she's pregnant at the end of it.
Speaker: And then Shielded Heart, I think, was also, I mean, it also seemed more like a breeding thing, except for they very intentionally don't breed in that one.
Speaker: So that was interesting to me because a lot of the stuff that I read in this sphere does seem to, it ties into...
Speaker: the weird, weird genital stuff, weird peeing stuff, really.
Speaker: And then on top of that, the breeding kink is like a fundamental component of a lot of it.
Speaker: And I mean, I get why people don't want
Speaker: that and that there's a market for that but it does there yeah maybe as you maybe that's the disconnect in shielded heart holly is that it feels more like a breeder kink book but there's not that happening and it's not really a kinky sexy kind of no there's there was like i mean it is but it's it is but there's like there was a lot of other plot yeah going on whatever their spider book is better so
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Holly did like the Spiderbook.
Speaker: I did like the Spiderbook.
Speaker: I didn't like this one so much, but... Well, I was like, I got into this one, and I was like, how have I been listening to four hours of a 12-hour book and nothing has happened yet?
Speaker: Which one?
Speaker: Shielded Heart.
Speaker: Shielded Heart was tough because it really did... It just had a lot of interesting dynamics going on that were not... I didn't love, but...
Speaker: It seemed like somebody spent a lot of time on the battle scenes.
Speaker: There was that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: As in our conversation of like, what is the point of these weird genitals?
Speaker: I feel like also this is something that usually comes up for me when I'm reading, having read quite a few of these weird books is, and especially in the Omegaverse stuff, which I don't need to get into right now.
Speaker: Deeply.
Speaker: other than to raise this point of like, because it's not just about the sex, it's also a little bit about the breeding and like aliens being able to, or in the case of like muscles and monsters, it's still interspecies, right?
Speaker: It's still a woven dude and a human woman being able to like still reproduce and have a family.
Speaker: Like a lot of times the other thing that comes into play is,
Speaker: biological determinism or gender essentialism but even more so than that because it's like
Speaker: I produce this part, you produce that part.
Speaker: These are the things that go together.
Speaker: This is how we overcome it.
Speaker: There's a special parasite that will make sure that we can still have children or whatever.
Speaker: Focus on that tends to overlook those other underlying issues.
Speaker: I think Strangelove did a really good job of kind of not tapping into this because it is so, well, because it just doesn't play into the gender binary.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Really at all.
Speaker: You know, like the whole point is kind of that it doesn't.
Speaker: But like so many other books, it's like very, very much like if it's Mpreg because it's Omegaverse, it's like, well, I'm going to turn you into...
Speaker: person who can bear children or like there's a special thing on this planet that can turn you into somebody who can bear children or whatever it is which you know in the titillation that kind of gets overlooked as like a let's discuss this let's look at this further and like what's going on here and the other thing that happens that we did discuss in our last monsters conversation about aliens is
Speaker: is like the colonialism component, which I don't think we ended up with in these four.
Speaker: But it does come up in a lot of alien romance where it's like, the human comes in.
Speaker: I mean, I think in all of these, the human is the, like kind of the underdog, the one who needs caring for rather than the one who's coming in to
Speaker: Yeah, but even in scenarios where the human is still like the only human on the planet, it's like, oh, but let me show you how your culture is oppressing my kind of people.
Speaker: Let me fix that for you.
Speaker: Which, yeah, that didn't really come into play.
Speaker: Although it could have done a little bit in Strange Love because of the way that their society was structured, but she just didn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: i mean well and like there is a little bit of like i'm gonna teach you what kissing is yeah um which showed up in nice planet barbarians also and strange love yes well they don't have he doesn't have a mouth he doesn't have a mouth just like what is this weird thing that we're doing yeah that's always that always makes me giggle like oh we're gonna do kissing lessons
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I want to say, I don't know where this question is, but so I've only ever read one book where it was the female partner who had unusual anatomy.
Speaker: And I don't know.
Speaker: What do we think about?
Speaker: I mean, is this purely, these are written for an audience that is attracted to men and like, that's what's going on here?
Speaker: Or like, I don't know.
Speaker: Do you guys have thoughts on this?
Speaker: Like, why is it always the
Speaker: We have weird.
Speaker: Well, so being someone who does not like this, but I'm a professional.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So from an impartial standpoint, I think people who like... Well, it depends, right?
Speaker: So there's the titillation part, right?
Speaker: I think that's separate.
Speaker: I think people who... That's just... We know what that is.
Speaker: We don't have to, like, get into that.
Speaker: for other people who are just like, I don't know, I just like it.
Speaker: I think it could be, you know, like, there's boundary pushing, right?
Speaker: There's like, who says this has to be normal?
Speaker: What happened?
Speaker: What would happen if it was like this?
Speaker: So it's stuff like that.
Speaker: And I don't just mean sexually, I also mean, like other things on the planet, right?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: I think there's something to be said about the way that, especially if you look at strange love, right?
Speaker: And that might've been missing a little bit in the, in shielded heart is that there's more of like, it's, it's interesting because they examine all the factors that go into existing somewhere else.
Speaker: Is it safe to touch this?
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: How would you pee if you don't have the same private parts as everybody else?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like, can I eat this food?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so there's like that it's there's boundary pushing and then there's examining.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I think people who are I get why there's this like idea that science nerds like these fantasy books, because I think scientists like to examine and question things.
Speaker: And I think it's the same thing with books like Strange Love or like books where they like really push what those norms, they really like throw all the norms of what we assume to be like what would happen to a human and just chuck it right out the window and start from scratch.
Speaker: So I think that people who are like that, people who like to be like, well, what about this?
Speaker: Well, what about that?
Speaker: And just kind of like really examine things and like nerd out over science.
Speaker: And I think that that's it's a good fit for people like that.
Speaker: Which I kind of thought that I was, but apparently I just have, you know.
Speaker: And I think it's also totally fair to be like, oh, nope, I am never going to kiss a mandible.
Speaker: And that is a bridge too far.
Speaker: It's too far.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I, okay, to answer your question, Holly, I agree with what Ingrid's saying, but also from where I've been sitting since we started down this path.
Speaker: The blog has opened so many doors for me.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: Yeah, I know, right?
Speaker: It's kind of fun, but kind of weird.
Speaker: But it does seem like this is heavily written for a female gaze.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: or I should say female gaze.
Speaker: That's the term, but like, I think Holly phrased it correctly.
Speaker: People who are interested in penises, um, that, you know, I, I have noticed that in a lot of my Omega verse reading, the percent of authors who identify as queer and especially as trans is greater than the percent of authors in other areas.
Speaker: So, I mean, if we're just looking at it from this frame of like, there are a lot of straight identifying women writing romance.
Speaker: They are writing straight identifying alien romance books.
Speaker: Then this is the larger section of what I ended up with.
Speaker: I did find a long time ago when I was on Reddit and it was, I brought it up for Holly and Ingrid to facilitate this conversation.
Speaker: We didn't totally end up using it.
Speaker: But somebody on Reddit, thank you very much, made a huge document of like weird monster anatomy.
Speaker: And it's like broken down into different stuff.
Speaker: It's completely overwhelming.
Speaker: It's yes, it's very long, but it does have a it does have sections for unique female genitals as well.
Speaker: So if you want to if you want to dive in there, I'll plug that in on the show notes.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, and the one I read, which was, is part of the like Desire Planet series by Robin Lovett.
Speaker: And even though it was a male human and a female alien, it still felt very female gaze because her bonus anatomy was she had extra clitorises.
Speaker: So sex was just extra good for her.
Speaker: And she also had a magic, like a literal magic vagina that could heal people.
Speaker: Yeah, that was an interesting review.
Speaker: I liked that one.
Speaker: But I could see how like, it's harder to, like, if we're writing for a female gaze, then it makes sense that we're going to like, try to write that people are going to try to write scenes where, like, how can we make
Speaker: The sex better for women, basically, is what seems to be like what a lot of these books do.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, this is a broad generalization, but.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I mean, sure.
Speaker: But I think that ties into a greater history of romance in general, where.
Speaker: If you talk about the history of romance, probably in the conversation, someone is going to bring up that women's sexual pleasure is not punished in romance.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That, you know, whereas it is in a lot of other spaces.
Speaker: So, I mean, it's just maybe part of a larger.
Speaker: Dynamic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Ingrid.
Speaker: So Ingrid.
Speaker: Next time we do this, you're definitely on board, right?
Speaker: I, I, I won't, you guys can have someone be a guest.
Speaker: I will just bring the popcorn if you want.
Speaker: You know, part of it too is my own doing.
Speaker: I don't think it's very healthy for anyone to read four of these books in 24 hours.
Speaker: Yeah, it's gonna take me a while to recover from that.
Speaker: That was definitely that was my own doing.
Speaker: And I know better.
Speaker: But I did it.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think by the end, I don't think this has ever happened to me before, but I was like, I'm bored of, I'm bored of this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was like, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And I, I have definitely, I, I did go through a phase, uh, at one point where I did read a big series that had, but again, it, it was just a little bit further away from that boundary line.
Speaker: It was way more anthropomorphized.
Speaker: And that was, I don't remember, obviously, do I ever remember what the series was, but that one was fine.
Speaker: But, um,
Speaker: This was different.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I mean, and I know you read like all of Ice Planet Barbarians, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It was a fever dream when I had two kids who were sick for a week.
Speaker: But again, that all also blurred together after a while because I do think that that one and Muscles and Monsters are more alike than the other two.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: I've never wanted to go back and reread ice planet barbarians.
Speaker: Like once I read it, I was like, Nope, I did that.
Speaker: I know what, I know what this one's about.
Speaker: I feel like after a few, like, I think the dragon ones that I read, which they're like dragon aliens or something.
Speaker: They're not just dragons.
Speaker: Uh, you know, I read like four and I was like, okay.
Speaker: And then I think I ran out of audio books.
Speaker: I was like, that's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't need to keep going, you know.
Speaker: Are those dragon ones, that is, are they adjacent to Ice Planet?
Speaker: No, they're completely different.
Speaker: They were really fun, but.
Speaker: Okay, because I thought, right when I stopped, it's kind of like, I know it sounds a little bit crazy to say this, but there was a point in Ice Planet where they introduced some other stuff, and I was like, okay, now you've jumped the shark.
Speaker: like i'm not sure well i feel like 20 is too many i feel like i would get i'd be like okay four or five i'm good like because she's got ice planet barbarians and then ice home which is a spin-off yeah which is another that's where like a volcano erupts and they all have to flee and then a whole nother group joins the people yeah
Speaker: anyway it's very interesting if i recall correctly someone can correct me if i'm wrong and and then she also has some about that same kind of aliens but not ones that became barbarians but are like space pirates right well of course there's captive the first alien book that ingrid ever read has like yeah that was the one best review and made ruby dixon's fans really mad
Speaker: Was that the one where I said that if you ever had a – if you, like, watched Star Wars, but then you were, like, kind of looking at Chewbacca and you were, like, ooh, like, this might be the book for you?
Speaker: Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker: I remember getting all those – it's, like, you start doing this blog and you're thinking, like, no one's going to read this.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden, like, the views start spiking on the one review where you're, like, ah, this was out of my comfort zone.
Speaker: And you're, like, oh, God, what have I done?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those were in our early days when we were emailing reviews to authors and mostly they ignored us except Ruby Dixon was like, this is hilarious and posted it on her Facebook page.
Speaker: Yeah, that was a moment.
Speaker: That was a moment.
Speaker: I'm glad she thought it was funny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a new experience for me.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, I think that's all we have to say about this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think we pretty much covered it.
Speaker: Ingrid's face the whole time.
Speaker: She was just like so deeply uncomfortable, deeply horrified.
Speaker: I think I'm going to like I've never thought about Botox, but after today, it might might have to be on the radar because that was a lot of brow furrowing for me.
Speaker: It was almost Aaron level.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But hey, no shame in the game.
Speaker: Like, listen, I don't want anyone to think I'm yucking any yums here.
Speaker: Like, you go ahead and you read what you want to read.
Speaker: No judgment here.
Speaker: I'm just probably not going to participate.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: In the, you know, like I said, I have a list.
Speaker: I can search future books for things like spermatophores.
Speaker: We'll go from there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, but Ingrid, but what did you think about Snaps?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: snaps was hilarious i loved snaps i also loved how he called her terrible one like kind of deep down would like that to be my pet name um there were so many parts that's the best name that's the best name ever no there were so many parts of that book and honestly like their relationship i i was like i okay it's just that every time i'd be like oh then she'd like grab his claw chicken claw or you know what i mean like
Speaker: yeah climb up and cuddle like she'd be disappointed she couldn't cuddle him she'd have to put a pillow between them so that she wouldn't get gored by his plates yeah you know it was a thing but yeah it was definitely i mean it was well written i could see a lot of people really liking that book snaps was hilarious in fact i've had a much i've had many conversations with my dog since i finished that because i was like well what if she was talking to me
Speaker: I feel like I should explain myself.
Speaker: Well, but we know when she's barking, she's just saying, hey, hey, hey, which makes sense.
Speaker: My favorite is when Snaps pees on the chair and is like, that's mine now.
Speaker: And then she's like, dude, you can't do that.
Speaker: And he's like, sorry, I was nervous.
Speaker: And then the alien was like, oh, okay.
Speaker: And like, takes it from the spaceship and puts it in his apartment.
Speaker: He's like, well, it belongs to me.
Speaker: And I also really liked how Zylar was like, oh, like, Snaps must be the one in charge.
Speaker: And Snaps is like, yes, I am a clever boy.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: barrel her name's barrel right it's just like like okay whatever and then well yeah kind of just like but like look at how carefully she's bathing him and washing his feet for him and like caring for him so carefully like yeah he must be the boss in this relationship
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I don't know how it's possible to have a talking dog, like make the black moment, like, more emotional.
Speaker: But when Snaps is like, I was a bad boy.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: and the fronds like this is the thing the whole book i'm just like can someone give that damn woman a hug like she can't hug anybody her best friend's got palm fronds for arms her future chosen partner has chicken claws and armor like poor lady give her a hug that's why she has a dog
Speaker: yeah i guess okay okay guys well do we have any recommendations in this category well no i mean so i love strange love i think it's a wonderful book but not a wonderful book if you're just trying to read a book about romance novel yeah no i think it's a wonderful romance novel uh just not not a sexy but not if you're interested in in fun sex scenes
Speaker: I think probably Ingrid.
Speaker: Well, that's not true.
Speaker: If you're, it depends on what kind.
Speaker: But Ingrid, I bet you would have liked it if you could have just skipped the sex scenes.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So, yes.
Speaker: It's just the sex scenes.
Speaker: I don't, yeah, it was just the sex scenes.
Speaker: And it was, you know, for clear reasons.
Speaker: But I will say the non-sexual part of this did kind of remind me of the Corsair's Captive series by Ruby Dixon.
Speaker: Because it is, you know.
Speaker: Abduction.
Speaker: And emotional.
Speaker: There's like a huge emotional connection.
Speaker: And, you know, will they be able to stay together and all that stuff.
Speaker: So, there's that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I feel like, see, I feel like most books in this category are mostly, I feel like they're kind of fine.
Speaker: Like when we did Monster Mash, Smashdown, like three years ago, whenever that was.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: I recall.
Speaker: And I like,
Speaker: had a month-long subscription to KU and went off the deep end and read nothing but Monstrous Month.
Speaker: Most of the time, I was like, well, that was a thing I read.
Speaker: Like, okay.
Speaker: That was fine.
Speaker: And then, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Although I feel... Well, but we could plug Aaron's book here because...
Speaker: And you're in the Yeti.
Speaker: His dick tastes like hot chocolate, right?
Speaker: No, it's coffee.
Speaker: Cream, coffee and cream.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: See?
Speaker: Yum.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It ended up on a Reddit bracket.
Speaker: I found one time.
Speaker: I was like, oh, that's exciting.
Speaker: Oh, congratulations.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I wrote, I wrote two books with weird penises.
Speaker: Yuri and the Yeti and Simon and the Sasquatch.
Speaker: And I just want to bring up here, shamelessly, what a great sister I am because I helped my sister edit her weird penis books.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: So I can crack my knuckles here and give some recommendations.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Please do.
Speaker: So I do think that Ruby Dixon is good entry level and she has several different series depending on what you're looking for.
Speaker: Although the Bound by the Battle God series, he has a normal dick.
Speaker: But it's pretty entertaining.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But 800 pages long.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the KU problem, right?
Speaker: So, yeah, we've got Ice Planet Barbarians.
Speaker: The Dragon series is Fireblood Dragon.
Speaker: Both of those, I think, tap into similar ideas of, like, an animalistic other man or man creature with a human woman.
Speaker: If you just want to get weird, real weird, yeah.
Speaker: Where are we going with this?
Speaker: I read, I found The Sea Monster's Mate by Delaney Rain.
Speaker: And that is like a tentacle alien who is hermaphroditic who needs to lay down.
Speaker: eggs and finds a human that one's male male I mean it's a hermaphroditic alien but it uses male pronouns so that one's male male but I was like what is happening here this is wild so if you want something pretty weird with tentacles that was entertaining and not like a super like overwhelming commitment back to aliens and humans I
Speaker: know how I found this but the the series is monsters love curvy girls I didn't read the whole series but the first couple I definitely found entertaining um the first book in the series is his human nanny by Michelle Mills that's another one similar it's like the alien is very other the human is going into a different culture but it's not so strange that uh Ingrid would be completely icked out probably just you know semi-icked out the Ingrid rating yeah
Speaker: And then, I mean, I could go down a whole like Omegaverse bonkers thing, but I won't do that for you right now.
Speaker: If you want recommendations, hit us up on the blog.
Speaker: I guess the last one I'll say is sometimes I go down a tentacle search.
Speaker: I found it's part of a Christmas series, I think.
Speaker: This one is also by Delaney Rain.
Speaker: But the reason I'm going to mention it is because it's an alien who's like really small.
Speaker: And that's pretty unusual.
Speaker: Usually they're like gigantor.
Speaker: So that's tentacles and other stocking stuffers by Delaney Rain.
Speaker: If you want to try like an alien crash landing on Earth and the guy who finds him has to like hide him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: from men in black basically i don't know it's just like what's happening i'm really enjoying this this is weird um so yeah i mean i've got lots of weird options oh the one with the one with like a demon with two penises that i mentioned was not so thanks in advance by cleo evans
Speaker: And Cleo Evans, the Warts and Claws series in particular, but I think all of Cleo Evans' books are like all over the place.
Speaker: Like poly, female, female, male, male, like male, female, like all over the place.
Speaker: Non-binary characters.
Speaker: So the Warts and Claws series for sure.
Speaker: Cleo Evans in general might be a good place for you to start if that's your jam.
Speaker: Maybe that'll be my, all right, my recommendations.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You're dipping a toe in here.
Speaker: Speaking of tiny aliens, this is not a romance novel.
Speaker: Are you guys familiar with Mr. Waffles?
Speaker: It's a children's book.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You guys should be.
Speaker: It's a picture book with no words.
Speaker: And it's about some aliens who land on Earth.
Speaker: But they're very tiny.
Speaker: And Mr. Waffles the cat thinks their spaceship is a cat toy.
Speaker: That sounds really fun.
Speaker: And it's about how they have to escape from Mr. Waffles.
Speaker: But they're like the size of ants.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: That's fun.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: So everybody should read it.
Speaker: My kids are like getting to be too old for it.
Speaker: But for a while, I kept like five copies in my closet at all times.
Speaker: And it was just our like standard birthday present for my friend's kids.
Speaker: But their friends are starting to be able to read now.
Speaker: So picture books are no longer their favorite thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's so sad.
Speaker: It's a sad day when you have to stop reading Mr. Waffles with your kids and have to start reading Minecraft chapter books because they are way less enjoyable.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: On that note, that is our Weird Pian pod.
Speaker: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker: Our next one might be a buddy read.
Speaker: So we'll get that one sorted out and be back soon with a deep dive on a single book.
Speaker: You can catch our show notes and everything else at...
Speaker: smartreport.com slash podcast and find us on a variety of socials where we pretend to hang out but don't actually like to be very much but maybe if you talk to us we'll talk back you can always leave us comments on the blog and until next time keep it smutty folks
