(Mira, July, 2006)
Reviewed by Steven Hendlin, Ph.D.

  M. J. Rose is known in publishing circles as the queen bee of book buzz. She’s been at the forefront of those interested in finding new marketing methods for authors wishing to assist their publisher’s efforts to promote their books. When not teaching authors how to get attention for their work, she’s busy researching and writing erotic thrillers of her own.

The Venus Fix is the first work of hers that I’ve read. But I’ve noted her clever use of double entendre in her previous titles, which include “Lying in Bed,” “Lip Service,” “In Fidelity,” “Flesh Tones,” and “Sheet Music.”

It’s only fair to qualify my comments by saying that my perspective as a reader and reviewer is not exactly that of your typical thriller enthusiast. I usually steer clear of anything having to do with violence or crime of any kind. I favor fiction and non-fiction that probes beneath the surface, mining for psychological insight. This interest in depth and substance is usually incompatible with page-turning entertainment that tends to float merrily on the surface—what is sometimes referred to as light and breezy beach reading. With The Venus Fix, Rose manages to give us a dollop of both psychological intrigue and self-examination combined with fast-paced action and multiple-character points of view.

The downside of the page-turning pace was that sometimes the short chapters switched gears too fast for me, without sufficient development of the scene or dialogue at hand. This style felt like the equivalent of watching a sit-com, where no scene lasts more than a minute. But these quick hits satisfy the structure of the thriller genre, that thrives on action that moves quickly enough to keep the reader’s interest and attention.

The substance of the book is the nitty-gritty world of online pornography and specifically, web cam sexual performances by young women, coupled with the their addictive cyber-viewing by men of all ages. Through a number of the characters, including the protagonist Dr. Morgan Snow, a sex therapist, Rose’s concern with the objectification of women and addictive nature of online pornography come through clearly but without sounding preachy or prudish.

The psychological issue is the ease with which teenagers and young adults may become ensnared in the Venus fly-trap of sexual play-acting in front of a web-cam for all those wishing to tune in and get turned on. The teens are lured by easy money, youthful experimentation and sexual attention used to feed their self-esteem and body image, exhibitionism, and feelings of temporary power and control over the male viewers, whose balls—through the digital magic of the streaming web cast— they symbolically hold in their hand.

Rose does a good job of showing the sad and desperate longing these teenage girls have to win the attention and affection of the males in their lives. The characters in this book feel they must compete with professional web-cam performers, since these are the “Venus” women the guys are lusting after and masturbating to.

The girls’ decision to parrot the sexual exhibitionism they see demonstrated by pro web-cam girls to show the guys they too can do it does not even win them the real emotional relationships they are seeking. This is strikingly shown in one of the more memorable scenes where two girls are on their knees casually giving blow jobs to their boyfriends while the guys sit watching the computer screen as web-cam girls perform to enhance their turn-on. If this isn’t the epitome of a one-two punch of making women sexual objects, I don’t know what is.

The plot in a nutshell: Web-cam girls die mysterious deaths online as they are performing, while their male viewers are watching at home. Dr. Morgan Snow happens to be treating a big shot for his pornography addiction who may have something to do with their deaths. But the good doctor doesn’t really know the identity of her big shot, which raises professional and ethical issues when it comes time for her to spill the beans to the detective on the case, who happens to be her current boyfriend.

Does she compromise her professional ethics by violating confidentiality? Or does she discuss the matter with her boyfriend so other girls are not put in jeopardy? And how does the fact that a former web-cam performer who has now morphed into a budding sex therapist in training relate to the whole thing? What about Dr. Snow’s teenage daughter who is an up and coming star on Broadway and wants to go to L.A. to be in a television series? How can Snow be a good parent by setting limits for daughter and yet face her daughter’s wrath because mom is blocking her dream? And will Snow finally open a heart that has been closed by the pain of divorce and allow herself to be loved again by her crime detective suitor?

One of my reasons for wanting to read this book was to see how Dr. Snow would be portrayed. As I have an interest in how practicing psychologists are or aren’t portrayed in books and film as blithering idiots (as in “What About Bob?”), it was good to see that Rose presented her protagonist in a mostly professional but vulnerable manner.

I would have liked it to be mentioned exactly what Snow’s academic training was—is she a psychologist or licensed marriage counselor who has a doctorate? How realistic is it that Dr. Snow would accept and treat a patient who refuses to give his real name? And where some stranger unrelated to the patient comes periodically to search the consulting room and institute to see if any bugs have been planted? I mean, I enjoyed “The President’s Analyst” with James Coburn during the psychedelic years but what professional today is going to stand for this kind of secretive bugging thing? At times, Snow is too self-consciously a psychotherapist, analyzing her own moves and the moves of others around her in a stereotyped fashion—to the point that she trips over her own interpretations.

These are, of course, nits that most likely would not be picked by anyone who isn’t identified with the profession of clinical psychology. Curiously, although Morgan Snow has a couple of sexual bouts with her boyfriend, her specific physical features are not mentioned in detail anywhere in the book. We have a protagonist who gets naked but we never really get a good “look” at her!

The best compliment I can give The Venus Fix is to say that the many sexual scenes are not titillating enough to get anyone hot and bothered and the deaths of the women are not graphic enough not to come off as gratuitous violence. While this may not sound like a compliment, it is. Because it means that Rose has accomplished her goal to sandwich a meaningful social issue between variations on the sexual theme on the one hand and who-dun-it murders on the other.

In conjunction with this review, I asked M. J. Rose some personal questions related to the theme of The Venus Fix. Here is that dialogue:

Me: “What is your own relationship to pornography in your life? Do you like it, hate it, find it fascinating?  Why has this interest in various forms of porn become a theme for your characters?”

Rose: “From all my research on the subject—and I do a lot of it for these books— I'm pretty typical in that I prefer to read erotica than watch porn. There's not enough room for my imagination in watching real people.

It's not a theme of mine. Its just what this book is about. I met a young girl two years ago who told me about some boys in her class who were addicted to internet porn and how she felt about it. I became fascinated by what she said.  Competing with models in magazines is one thing—but teenage girls are also now faced with competing with the highly sexualized "Venus" women teenage boys have available to them 24/7 on- line.  It was heartbreaking to me.”

Me: “How do you view internet dating?  How do you feel about the exchange of sexual talk between people online whom they may never meet or wish to meet?  Would you consider it to be ‘emotionally unfaithful’ if your partner was having sexual talk with someone online?”

Rose: “I don't see it as unfaithful in the true sense of the word. I'd certainly rather my partner engage in some dirty chatter on line than go out and have a full blown affair.  I actually wrote a novel that deals with that subject— Lip Service.

I think we as a society are relying on the internet too much in so many areas. Intimacy is hard in a relationship—and relationship— family, friends, lovers - and the internet offers a false intimacy that is all too easy.”

Me: “Is there anything else you'd like to share on this topic that would elucidate your thinking when you are creating your characters?”

Rose: “I spend three months creating my character's work—making a scrap book that includes everything from what they wear to the movies they like to birthday cards they saved. I have to see, hear and know my characters very intimately before I start working on a novel.”

Steven Hendlin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Newport Beach, California. He writes a column for Coast Magazine entitled “Shrink Rap” and a column for Backspace entitled “Your Write Mind.”