Who’s excited for the upcoming 50 Shades of Grey movie? Only a few more weeks to go before you have to avoid asking your mom if she’s seen any great films recently. Personally, I’ll be avoiding eye contact for months.
As all of you know, I read 50 Shades of Grey, but unlike my step-grandmother, I did not find it to be “Yawn.” In fact, I think it’s the comedic novel of our time. And I’m not alone! Erotica is a big busty business, and everyone wants a sweet taste of the cherry. (Ugh, gross. Sorry, sorry.)
But did you know there’s a subset of erotica? Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and A Study in Scarlet are a few examples of novels rewritten with sexual undertones (or overtones). It’s infringement plus erotica, something I like to call “Infringementotica.” “Infringementotica” has been around for awhile (as a teen, I found a stand-alone novel in a bargain bin about Wuthering Heights‘ Heathcliff and his sexy escapades abroad.). However, a flurry of books have been released in the past few years in this subgenre. Of course, none compare to Jane Eyre Laid Bare: The Classic Novel With An Erotic Twist.
Jane Eyre is my favorite novel. I own five (billion) copies of it. I’ve written haikus dedicated to its adaptations. So I had to check this out. The novel is by “Charlotte Bronte and Eve Sinclair.” Wow, can you imagine being a fly on the wall during that drafting process? “Charlotte, should Mr. Rochester give Jane a naughty spanking before or after they are engaged?” “Please, kill me. Oh, I’m already dead. Please, re-kill me.”
Jane Eyre Laid Bare begins with Jane slutting it up Victorian style, which means she is in a carriage on her way to Thornfield and having an orgasm!
“…I found, having slipped downwards on the leather seat, that the underneath seam of my drawers was tugging at me in such a way that I latched onto the familiar sensation which so often had been a prelude to sleep in the dark dormitory at Lowood. In the privacy of the carriage, quite alone for the first time in as long as I could remember, and still on the very verge of sleep, my mind wandered back to the girls at the boarding school that I had just left and their soft embraces. And as I reflected further, I remembered Bessie and how she had taught me her secret remedy to alleviate the disquiet of the mind, and how her swift fingers and thumb had massaged my young body into its first delight.”
Awesome, also inaccurate, via Genevieve, who hates me for sending her excerpts of this book. (WE’RE FRIENDS FOREVER, TOO BAD GENEVIEVE.) Ahem. For those of you interested in having a proper early Victorian orgasm in a carriage, your drawers will probably not have seams. Also, you should give the horse an extra flake of hay for being thoughtful enough to speed up and cause the carriage to jiggle at “such an agreeable speed,” that you are “brought quickly to a pleasurable release.”
Anyways, she arrives at Thornfield, and the original text by Bronte is inter-cut with Jane thinking about all the girl-on-girl action she experienced at Lowood. Or, she’s masturbating. Jane loves masturbating! Sometimes with a candle! You know how in the original Jane Eyre, there was some religion in there? Well, this Jane wants something in her and it is not the Holy Spirit.
Soon, Mr. Rochester has to get in on the candle-action. The famous “rouse Mr. Rochester from his flaming bed” scene is included, with an added bonus: Mr. Rochester’s crotch:
“Tongues of flame darted round the bed. The curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep. In the burning light, I could see his form beneath the thin sheets, the spread of his loins, the bulge between them and for one fleeting second, I thought that Céline Varens hadn’t been wrong. Unencumbered by clothes, he was like a Greek god.”
At this point, one might think Jane is going to find a nearby candle and have at it. But instead she saves Mr. Rochester and they complete their first open-mouth suction cup kiss. Mr. Rochester continues his wooing of Jane with such titillating dialogue as “She’s a strapper. A real strapper, Jane. Big and buxom.” and “Would you like to be a Brazilian girl tonight?”
Mr. Rochester doesn’t stop his exotification there. After they are engaged, Jane’s in Mr. Rochester’s room and he takes “a red ornament off the mantelpiece…” he tells Jane, “The first Japanese girl I ever knew gave me a collection of these.” Turns out, it’s a dildo. Yup, Mr. Rochester has a dildo on his mantlepiece. “..I was amazed that Mrs Fairfax had supervised the cleaning of this room so often and that little Adèle had played in here, pointing out these objects, never knowing their true purpose,” Jane thinks to herself.
Jane, Mrs. Fairfax knew all along about Mr. Rochester’s mantlepiece dildo. It’s not like she’s as naive of the pleasures of the flesh as you! Why do you think she has that many keys?
Jane and Mr. Rochester start to sex all over the place. In the bed! In the tub. Back in the bed! They read a dirty book together that has pictures! Mr. Rochester tells Jane he likes getting tied up but Jane never ties Mr. Rochester up and they have more shocking missionary sex! Then, they do it on a horse! “How” is one question, the other question is why none of these horses have filed a sexual harassment suit.
You know, this has got me thinking that Infrigementotica is a gold mine and I want in! It’s so easy to just take a classic novel and insert a bunch of scintillating sex scenes. Check out what I did with Moby Dick:
“And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue in these assaults—not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouring amputations—but fatal to the last degree of fatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come.”
“I longed for him, the dangerous White Whale. Oh, how he tempted me. I dreamed of touching him, of running my hands over his beautiful blunt shaped body. My body throbbed at these illicit thoughts. I could not stop myself from the wanting. Would he call to me? Would I hear his gentle clicks of pleasure as I stroked over his massive head, where the richness of oil reserves beat like my restless heart?”
See? I’m a natural! Now, let’s all go get some candles!