Episode 23 – Warrior’s Woman by Johanna Lindsey

Here we go again with my nominee for “Most Likely to Catch an Intervention For Smoking Strawberry-Flavored Crack”, Johanna Lindsey!  Finally, we’ve read one of the kind of books I was really expecting to come across when we started doing this podcast – the kind of book I wrote our long and thoughtful On Language and Consent page about and then for some reason it’s turned out we haven’t needed it much.  But then we came to this one.  Warrior’s Woman by Johanna Lindsey.

Transcript available here.

HOOOOO BOY Y’ALL.  So.  Fearless boss bitch space security alpha Tedra De Arr flees her planet after an evil dictator takes it over and sells all the women on it into slavery to the barbarian mercenaries he hired to coup that etat.  And by barbarians I do mean swords and flowing locks, y’all.  This cover is entirely accurate.  No, we can’t tell if it’s Fabio or if it’s just poorly drawn either.  She finds a planet full of other, yet related barbarians and gets captured on it by primitive stud Challen Ly-San-Ter, who she hopes to convince to return with her at the head of a He-Man style army to take back the presidency look it would be weird but I’ll fucking take it, I’ll take anything at this point, please let Liz Warren ride Prince Adam into fucking battle for me holding onto him by his flowing locks.  Sword and Planet 2020!

So.  Big warnings here.  To refer back to our page on language – this is a ravishing.  Her mouth says no but her body says yes.  A lot.  Like all the fucking time.  All times are fucking times, and all those fucking times are nonconsensual when it comes down to it.  Seriously this book would be a pamphlet if you cut out all the sex, and it is all done with some level of coercion.  Tedra is in a position she can’t easily escape and bound by customs she doesn’t understand, and while Challen says he’d never force her to have sex with him she’s essentially enslaved for a specific time period, plus she’s always telling him no but digging it anyway.  Some people are not going to like this one for this reason.  For me personally it was fine because it’s all presented in this very fantasy context and she’s very into it.  Your mileage may vary.

Additionally it is implied, although not shown “on screen”, that the rest of the women of Tedra’s planet are getting not-ravished-but-raped by that first set of barbarians the whole time Tedra’s getting her jollies in the Castle of Greyskull. Tedra also has a computer “friend” who essentially keeps trying to maneuver her into having sex she doesn’t want, which is how you know somebody is definitely not your friend.

So if none of that is your jam, by all means we understand if you want to give this one a pass.  If you’re fine with listening us talk about it but not with reading it, get with our episode.  If you don’t even want to hear about it, we completely understand and will catch you on the flipside with our next episode.  HOWEVER, if you can handle that you should totally read this because it is the dumbest most bonkers fucking book, y’all.

We’re also premiering some new stuff on this episode – you’re going to love “Martha Does Martha”, where Courtney’s friend’s mom reads some of the bitch-fest AI’s dialogue.  We’re going to continue that in the future with “Kiss Your Mama With That Mouth”, where we get older women of all sorts to read crazy passages from upcoming books.  If you want your mom, or your auntie, or your delightful neighbor, or your high school English teacher, or whoever to be featured on these segments, email us at [email protected] or contact us through any of our social media and we’ll tell you how to make it happen!

I spend a good bit of time on this one boring Courtney by talking about “Sword and Planet” books and how they always have some weird sex business in them.  Here are some of the ones I was talking about, and yes, they all have some weird sex business.