Reading is dangerous

I recently told a friend ‘reading is dangerous’. I thought I’d expound upon that a little. When I started reading (fifteen months ago), first finding the genre of Lesbian Romance, then lesbian etcetera, I couldn’t help but relate to the stories. At first I thought it was kind of scary, but the more I read and convinced myself that they were just characters, completely made up from someone’s mind I started reading more easily. Sure the scenarios could be real enough, but life is not a romance novel. Beautiful, buxom, lost divorcées do not suddenly appear next to creeks in the mountains for you to rescue and fall in love with; not everyday anyway. I’d been able to create a hazy, warm cocoon of pleasantness around me while reading these stories. They bring a kind of relaxation to me, a chance to get away from the trials of life (loosing hours at work, possibly taking guardianship of our neglected niece and nephew, and the damn bills).  Recently however I’ve discovered an author and a whole other genre of literature which I can only describe best as ‘wholly WTF’? The series I’m reading I shall not name, nor the author. But the general description of the stories is thus; two men meet during the war of Napoleon, they fall in love but when they return to London they require a wife. One of the men marries a fair young maiden and they all three live happily ever after making love to each other, often times at the same time. The books are graphic in their depiction of the sex had between the three lovers. So graphic in fact that they offer a warning of sorts in the front of the book that the contents contain male on male sex scenes, oooo very scary! However what has been scary about reading this series, I’m on book four of eight, has been my reaction to them. Not only am I addicted to them, I’m truly turned on by them. I’ve spent the last week and a half lost not in a ‘hazy warm cocoon of pleasantness’ but a sharp painful state of crude, musky arousal. I will not now or ever condone the burning of books, but I can kind of see why uneducated masses of people would be afraid of them so badly. Books seem to have the power to illicit in us our deepest fears, darkest desires and such. The power of which authors unknowingly wield over young unsuspecting persons. Or even people who are of supposed sound mind and personality. The power that words have is amazing. Edward Bulwer-Lytton was right when he said the ‘pen is mightier than the sword’. It’s a phrase we often joke with, rarely taking it seriously but it is so true on so many levels. Books have the power to mold our minds, not just entertain us, but change that which in us we thought already formed solidly. Perhaps I am just of soft mind enough to be altered by a book, perhaps I’m not ‘well read’ enough to expand my horizons to other genres yet? Whatever the feelings are exploding within me, as terrified as I am to research them closer, I keep returning to the books at the root of it. I think I should pick up some Nancy Drew or Encyclopedia Brown books after this though, maybe a ‘create your own adventure’ book or two. Actually I think returning to a lesbian author and lesbian characters who make lesbian love might bring me back to a comfortable place in life. My wife thinks me a conservative as such because I hate change, perhaps she’s right, and these books with all their liberal ideas are just poisoning my core beliefs system. Bah! Ha! Ha! Did I mention the series takes place in the time after the defeat of Napoleon, thus the Victorian era, old English cadence I seem to be slipping in and out of. Anyway, it’s true I’m not big on change, in me, in my life; the only change I readily approve of is in my undergarments. But having said that, a change of mind as terrifying as it is can be, can also be tantalizing welcome. It’s really quite ridiculous to be thirty-six years old and just now experiencing growing pains of an expanding mind. My head, I find is now so full of ideas, thoughts, stories that’s it’s almost painful. I want nothing more than to rid my mind of these words, but they fill me with such adrenaline; thus I think causing the addiction. So, if I am changing in mind, in life, in world view, I welcome it with open arms and synaptic vesicles!