So I’ve been a little absent from the blog for the last few days. I skipped my regular Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday posts. I have a pretty good reason. I’ve been hard at work on a book that is turning into a beast (Bookie and the Beast I might call it) and listening to the sweet sound of jackhammers tearing apart my front stoop.
But really I haven’t been blogging because I’m suffering from PTSD. Well, not PTSD exactly, but I am reeling from the response to something I wrote last week called The (A)Sexual Politics of the Hunger Games. It was an incendiary post; I freely admit that. It got a lot of comments and started some interesting discussions, which I always love.
It also got a lot of hits. I mean A LOT. I broke my daily hit record three days in a row. It is now the most clicked on post on my blog apart from my home page. Now I’m not so delusional to think that people are clicking on this post because of the buzz of the post, or that people are sharing it here there and everywhere. The fact is that most people were arriving at it by accident, resulting from google searches. And this is what I’m reeling from.
The post concerned the unrealistic lack of sexual violence not just in The Hunger Games but in many YA dystopian worlds. Needless to say the word rape was used. Various other sexual terms were used. And here’s where it gets weird. A summary of the search terms used to find this post best expresses what has been troubling me:
| sexy katniss hunger games rape hunger games sex the hunger games rape katniss sexy glamour narnia sex is hunger games sexual is katniss a virgin hunger game sex sex in the hunger games rape in the hunger games katniss sexy sezy katniss the hunger games sexual is there rape in hunger games? do they rape katniss in the hunger games? hunger games sex cave is katniss virgin | jennifer lawrence cup size hunger games sex games the hunger games book sex cave the hunger games katniss sexy sexy hunger games do any tributes have sex in the arena asexual hunger games does hunger games have sex rape in hunger games cato from the hunger games looks like a rapist hunger games katniss sexy angel horn hunger games sexual assilt katniss ever have sex in the books why is the hunger games sexualy explicit no sex in hunger games sexy katniss fucked hard hunger games how does the hunger games have sexual references in mockingjay? |
I understand that some of these searches were probably done by horny teenage boys. I also understand that someone might think ‘cato from the hunger games looks like a rapist’. I could understand even if they tweeted it. But why would you google this? Are they looking for someone who agrees with them? (I don’t). And I can only imagine that the search “sexy katniss fucked hard hunger games” was looking for some kind of pornographic homage (possibly titled The Finger Games or maybe The Hung Games?). But really people, what the fuck? Have I stumbled on a zeitgeist? Here I was thinking it was just my weird pedantic little brain that was obsessing about this issue, but apparently not.
Anyway, I appreciate the traffic to my blog, but seriously, the whole thing has left me feeling a bit skeevy.
That is so disturbing.
Right? I’m sure I’ve only made it worse now but I had to say something.
We should all be saying something. That’s what it takes to make it stop.
All I can say is…it’s the Internet. Crap like this is practically expected; people are weird. Doesn’t make it right or any less disturbing that someone is Googling creepy things to do with sex and The Hunger Games, but I can’t say I’m surprised. This reminds me of a post by another blogger where she complained about all the weird search terms people used to find her blog. The worst was for a post where she had mentioned something about horses/horse racing. She then got a slew of searches concerning bestiality.
Gross.
Just stumbled across your blog!
I agree that a lot of those searches are reepy . But I also think that a few of them–hunger games rape, hunger games sex, etc.–could have actually been from concerned parents/readers who wanted to make sure that there isn’t any explicity material in the book before they pick it up.
Maybe. But today I got a search “book like the hunger games but with sex”. And “Peeta virgin”. Truly maybe this book is twisting people’s minds.
Oops. I meant “creepy!” Apparently I took away the “c” when I edited the sentence.
I’m sure the movie has at least a little to do with it. Now that there’s a real visual Katniss…. And I think we often have a tendency to associte violence and sex together, maybe as things that “sell,” so that could be part of the inspiration, too.
I am completely confused by the Narnia search, however, considering those are children’s books. I don’t really want to think too much about it!