This woman believes the secret to a happy marriage is doing anything to keep your husband happy, even if it includes being verbally abused, forced to have sex and hiding her bodily functions so as not to offend your man.
Melissa Gorga stars in the reality show The Real Housewives of New Jersey and has just released a book called Love Italian Style: The Secrets of My Hot and Happy Marriage. Another subtitle might be: How To Set the Women's Movement Back 100 Years.
The advice in this how-to guide to romance, based on her relationship with husband Joe Gorga, is meant to be "old school with modern all in one," she told the hosts of American talk show Fox & Friends. "When the man of the house is happy, in return, you are happy."
"The amount of 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," writes Jezebel. "It might be the most sexist, misogynistic, barbaric book on love and relationships ever written," criticized CafeMom.com. "Seriously. Not kidding."
What exactly have reviewers found so offensive? Let's start with the Joe-penned excerpt that has actually led to accusations that the Gorgas are advocating marital rape: "Men, I know you think your woman isn't the type who wants to be taken," he writes. "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. … Women don't realize how easy men are. Just give us what we want."
That's not the only frightening, violent-tinged description of their marriage. "[Joe's] style was to make corrections and to teach me from the beginning days of our marriage exactly how he envisioned our life together," Melissa writes. "Joe always says, 'You got to teach someone to walk straight on the knife. If you slip, you're going to get cut. Even if something didn't bother him that badly, he'd bring it up. He wanted to make sure that I knew, for example, if I ran out to CVS and he came home from work to an empty house, he didn't like it. He'd call me and say, 'I don't care if you're out all day long. But I don't want to come home to an empty house.'"