Melissa Gorga, one of the stars of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," is being accused of advocating for marital rape in her new advice book, "Love, Italian Style: The Secrets of My Hot and Happy Marriage," The Huffington Post reports, under fire for her controversial writings on gender roles in marriage.
Gorga signed a book deal with St. Martin's Press in December, in which she agreed to pen an advice book on how to strengthen a marriage. According to US Weekly, the star wanted to promote marriage as being "as sexy and hot as it is warm and loving." However, many readers are appalled by the book's content, including Jezebel writer Tracie Egan Morrissey, who writes that there is "sexism, gender essentialism, and caveman logic within its pages is so appalling that it's difficult to believe that her book is anything but a cry for help."
One of the most troubling passages for readers, including Morrissey, is the paragraph in which Gorga claims that women love to be sexually dominated, even if and when they tell their husbands "no."
"Men, I know you think your woman isn't the type who wants to be taken. But trust me, she is. Every girl wants to get her hair pulled once in a while. If your wife says 'no,' turn her around, and rip her clothes off. She wants to be dominated," Gorga writes in her book.
As Morrissey points out, non-consensual sex is rape, something that Gorga and her editors failed to notice before the book went to the press. Morrissey also quotes passages in which Gorga appears to be her husband's sex slave, including the excerpt: "[A] woman needs to keep herself in shape. She has to be seductive. She must be willing to try new things for her husband's pleasure and her own. And, most important, she has to be available for sex."
Gorga also writes of letting her husband have sex with her even if she is "exhausted" or "not really in the mood," suggests that women not tell their husbands to leave them alone, and admits to letting her husband yell at her to "release stress" every now and then.
Another passage asserts that men are driven to cheat because of their wives' sexual behavior, or lack thereof.
"Refusing to initiate is a Top Three reason men cheat," writes Gorga. "The ugliest girl in the world could come on to a man in that state of mind, and he might have to go for it. He thinks, At least someone wants me"
Currently, Gorga's book has a low average rating of two out of five stars on Amazon, the majority of readers calling out the star for advising women to let men have sex with them even if they don't want to, and critiquing the many double standards present in the material, even when it comes to the couple's children.
"I am horrified that anyone published this," wrote one reviewer. "Melissa Gorga is married to an emotionally, probably physically, abusive jerk who wants to suffocate both her and her daughter."
"This is an extremely dangerous thing to advocate, and gives permission to rapists to do whatever they like without considering the effect on others. And yes, you CAN be raped by the person you're married to. The views in this book are so backwards that even that might not be a given," writes another.
Other reviewers noted the many grammatical errors and typos throughout the book, suggesting it should have been ghostwritten.
