By Caribbean Comedian Onicia Muller
Want to know a deep dark secret? I used to be hooked on smutty romance novels. I know. I KNOW! The worst thing about romance novels—besides the writing—is the covers. O. M. G.
Dear book cover designers: If we, romance readers, needed visuals we would watch porn. Periodt.
Putting saucy images on a romance novel is like putting images on a pizza box. The actual product never matches up and we don’t care because we’re not interested in the packaging.
Once during a boring economics class, to distract myself from staring super hard at my crush, I I decided to read a romance novel. I know. I KNOW!
The threat of my teacher snatching the book where the lead male’s face was pressed into a buxom bosom wasn’t strong enough to pull me away from pages of lady smut.
After looking around, (you know, to check if the coast was clear) I realized that my fellow romance novel readers sat with their backpacks half open on their lap or desk because they were propping up their books while hiding the covers. Genius moves.
I took this new knowledge as a sign from above to move forward.
Let’s pause for a moment to judge me. How sad was my life that I willing to risk total humiliation by reading a soft porn in public?
I believed nothing bad would happen to me because my friends had been reading in class for as long as I knew them.
Roberto, my crush, stood up to throw a paper in the trash. This was my opportunity to steal a glance at his butt. Mmm.
“Hey Onicia,” OMG, Roberto noticed me and he knew my name! “What are you reading?”
Oh no. I needed to dispose of le written erotica. “Teacher! Teacher! These gyal dem over here reading lady porn!”
NOOOO WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO RAVISH ME, NOT RAKE ME OVER THE HOT COALS OF SOCIAL REJECTION!
This was not at all like my fantasies. Thankfully my skin was too dark to blush. I wanted to pull my backpack’s flap down and zip it before Roberto could grab the novel. However, I feared doing so would be an admission of guilt.
Thankfully, the class erupted in a debate on whether romance novels were porn and if boys could then bring their films and magazines to class.
As my fellow romance readers defended their books, everyone forgot about me. I never read another novel in class and I don’t think Roberto ever spoke to me again.
Shout out to librarians who just scan the books without judgement. Double shout out to the libraries with self-checkout.
Photo by Elizabeth McQuern
Award-winning Caribbean comedian, Onicia Muller’s weekly humour column, Just Being Funny is chicken soup for the naive sceptic’s soul. You can hire her to write anything from blogs and newsletters to bathroom poetry funny greeting cards. Join her newsletter for funny stories and stand-up comedy. OniciaMuller.com
