I do try to keep political commentary off my Facebook page, but sometimes my outrage just boils over, and I post a comment, usually on the funny or mocking side. I did so a few months back, and those who followed the thread will be aware of what happened next. Within minutes, I was verbally attacked by a man I'd know for twenty years. We'd always gotten along, and at times, I threw some personal business his way as he always seemed to be out of a job. One of my library staff members called these patrons the "poor souls" who came to the library for someone to talk to mostly.
Anyhow, livid about my joke, he accused me of being a Communist, a corrupter of children with my opinions, and a terrible librarian who wasn't worth the salary I was paid. (Librarians are paid even worse than teachers.) Gently, I replied that I'd been a Democrat just slightly left of center since the age of twenty-one, had never worked with children as I was an administrative librarian, and I had been awarded a state medal for outstanding librarianship. When I retired, I left the library with several new branches, plans for more, and in good financial condition.
Since that failed to get a rise out of me, he then went on to say that I now wrote "dirty little sex books", insults being the stock in trade of the man he worships. I pointed out that my books, all twenty-nine of them, were not little by far, being between 70,000 and 100,000 words. Though I hated to admit it, my books aren't very sexy and this is sometimes mentioned in reviews. As for being dirty, didn't we all come into the world because of sex? I do not consider two adults who care about each other making love a dirty act. I challenged him to read any of my books for free as the public library has them all, and then he could criticize.
His reply--I can tell by the covers what kind of books you write. Isn't that a classic remark? He evidently doesn't know that published authors have little to say about their covers. I get some input, but not much. As I thought about my covers, they are fairly bland for the romance genre. I do have a lot of shirtless men, because, honey, that sells, I've been told. There isn't one clinch cover, and the women are all fully clothed in not particularly sexy garments.
I told him that if he read my books, he'd notice they have strong family values. Not one of my heroes has ever paid a porn star for sex while his wife is recovering from childbirth and then paid $150,000 to cover up his yes, dirty, deed. I didn't wait for a reply, just simply blocked and unfriended him. A fanatic can't be reasoned with. I will add that other librarians and my readers did jump to my defense which left me feeling all warm and fuzzy. Poor man, he'll never the pleasure of reading one of my books.
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Good for you.Oh, you could have gone farther with the FL's porn background and the "when your a celeb" tape, but as you said, you can't reason with fanatics. Good for you for standing up, though.It's a line that is drawn and sometimes you have to cross it and draw your own line. It amazes me how ugly and highly personal the insults become, especially from those who consider themselves 'family values' people. Hang in there.
ReplyDeleteI am over it. If you write romance, you need to have a sense of humor as you often get teased but in a friendlier manner. As their wives browse my books, older men will ask how I come up with all those sex scenes, which as I've said are few and not very hot. I usually say I have rich imagination because no man is the good! But, they are joking. I've never been so viciously attacked--and over a brief political comment that had nothing to do with my books.
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