O Review

Femdom Book Review: Glamourhai by Jess Mahler

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Glamourhai by Jess Mahler

Jess Mahler is also the author behind “Fantasy for the Kinky“, and has released one of her serials in ebook form, complete with a lovely cover- I’ve reviewed her work already with the short story “Fealty“. As such I had the good fortune to get a review copy of Glamourhai.

When people write BDSM stories, they are generally wank material or romances. Whether they are con-non-con, torture tourism or strictly spank and smooch, sexual and romantic desire is a central point behind the main characters’ interactions. This book is none of these.

What it is, is a femdom focused fantasy novel by an experienced writer. That’s pretty much the best one could wish for, to have the subject material handled by someone with strong technical skills and a love for the subject material. On the flip side, it’s a surprisingly chaste book about coming into your own regarding your orientation- there is more fantasy adventure here than fucking, and the romance is mostly onto the side characters.

To summarize the plot: In a land ruled by fairie lieges who feed on the emotional energy of human thralls, a young man (Mattin) trades himself in a lifetime of service to a relatively benevolent fairy lady to try to win back a sister (Marta) who has been claimed by a much less kind fairie lord. However, things are not all they seem- between finding his feet in a bizarre magical household and navigating the dangerous politics of the realm, Mattin must discover if he can truly submit to his Lady. She, for her part, has to deal with actually needing to let someone adjust to their role instead of a comforting, easy insta-sub like the rest of her household and a strong desire to have him accept his role willingly.

Fantasy, as a genre, often provides us with conceits that let us explore alternative social arrangements and relationship dynamics that are otherwise improbable or rare- in this book, the prevailing mode of business is poly. From the perspective of the sympathetic characters, rape and non-consensual torture is morally wrong, but regrettably common and the human subjects of the fairies collectively live in a feudal system where they  live like medieval vassals.

If I had to make a comparison to Jess Mahler’s style, it’s as if Mercedes Lackey or maybe Anne McCaffery took up writing femdom- by this I mean that it’s a very personality and feelings driven story- in which the central conflict is settling precisely what is the correct emotional approach and practical coping skills for a new environment- with bonus sensible perpetually middle aged types and experienced hands watching out for whatever awakening is taking place.

And yet it’s a world laced with sex that is without much sex between the primary characters- to be frank, Mattin’s awakening was a lot closer to a religious calling. The fairie lady everyone serves simply does not fuck her servants just to punch up the erotica factor gratiously.  She might sexually tease them, but if servants get horny, it’s up to their fellow humans to figure that part out. Not much time is devoted to her sexual head space in favour of a focus on her emotional desires, and her hopes and dears for Mattin.

Indeed, Mattin doesn’t persue her in that sense eithere- his sexuality is expressed in a way that’s almost vanilla, the sort of tasteful sluttiness matched with the equal tastefully slutty human female household member. There’s a m/m side romance between some other characters, and everyone else has a jolly, happy attitude to sexuality that is more cozy than vulgar.

Personally, my sexuality and my BDSM is more vulgar than cozy, and a lot less nice. Thus I found myself in an uncomfortable position, which I have to move into spoilers to talk about- so, after the jump…

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Review: Little Submissions Collected Short Stories Pt. 1

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Go buy this please.There are few writers more influential on my own femdom stories than Vague (Jerry Jones), of Little Submissions. Imaginative, violent and loving, he manages to capture both all the playfulness and the creative cruelty you can find in D/s done right. And, I had the good fortune of a long term fan of his stuff to be gifted with a review copy of his first release of collected short stories. Woop!

This release is a cleaned up and edited version of his earlier works (now with fewer typos!). If you’re cheap, you can head on over to his blog to read them, but if you want to support one of the hottest creators of free femdom erotica, I really urge you to shell out for the ebook.

It’s available in digital format, and from what I understand, he’s hashing out a deal with Lulu for a dead tree version. Maybe that’ll be ready in time for Christmas- if so i’ll update the links.

One of the main things that I like about all his stories is that the doms aren’t just into it, but sloppy wet and masturbating all over the furniture. You’re not going to get any sneering “Need a real man!” types here, rather that he writes his women as having a fierce love or the men who take the full brunt of their attentions. And, in turn, the subs are into it, but gratifyingly capable of a full range of reactions. One of his strongest suits in his writing is hints of the dynamics of a healthy couple with a lot more going on then their sex lives, and generally his characters feel like people with hobbies and needs and wants outside the margins of the text.

Here are some of the stories that Vague cooked up, because there’s a lot of stories in this anthology:

In “The Explanation” She tells him why she hates classical music but would love making a spectacle of him at the symphony, to the detriment of his tux. In “New Rule” she denies him the bed until he provides an erection and fucks her, then callously sends him back to the floor until he begs to be locked up. “Pennies” makes orgasm denial romantic, a rare achievement. “Telling Stories” didn’t make me come, but it made me laugh, and many of his other tales mix brutality, imagination and an absurd but true to life thread of humour that makes him, bar none, one of my favourite writers.

Category: Anthology of Short Femdom Stories
Rating: o~o~o~o~o (5/5)
How I Got It: Free copy from author!
TL;DR: D/s, between F/m couples (possibly the same couple)  or imaginative F+/m and F/m scenarios that are often rough, heavy and hard, but universally consenting.

Review: Femme Fatale: Slave To My Nature Series by Robert India

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This is one of those ebooks being heavily pushed on Twitter as #femdom. To be precise Femme Fatale: Slave to My Nature has some femdom scenes in it. There are not, however, any Femme Fatales and this is a book. I didn’t like it but not because it was badly written, but because it did nada for me and my kinks.  Robert India put together something that is just dandy, if any of these things are your idea of fun:

Switching, being snarky about other people’s sexuality, high heels, M/m and mmf threesomes. And being super happy hot people living the sweet poly lux life.

As far as femdoms, though (or femme fatales), there’s Houseguest, his poly girlfriend, who he switches with, and a the female half of a couple the protagonist (also called Robert) has a threesome with and then berates for being too kinky for him. Every woman wears expensive high heels, much to the the delight of our hero. Robert does play up the “slave to my nature” bit, but precisely speaking that’s a desire to worship shoes and fuck pretty women. This is a story about a guy who thinks with his little head almost exclusively.

I think the protagonist spends as much time dom-ing men as he does submitting. One of the reasons why this book didn’t work for me on a personal level is that while Houseguest was cast as a distinct character with a will of her own, the finale scene was him topping her plus their bonus lover. If if could describe this any way I think it would be “the story of how a poly switch couple became a triad”. Clearly these people are very happy- score one for Robert India on that front.

But generally the femdom was put in a very controlled context- the protagonist puts himself in voluntary orgasm denial and Houseguest lightly teases him. The protagonist gets a demonstration that he’s not into masochism from Houseguest. He goes through with a threesome with a more S&M oriented couple, and rather than doing a pre-scene negotiation, storms off when he doesn’t like the direction their kinks went. I don’t really ever get the sense that Robert respects anyone in this story, except grudgingly, Houseguest.

This is another place where I was left scratching my head in puzzlement- basically we have femdom scenarios where the guy is at best ambiguously intrigued about them unless it’s things he very much wants. since there’s nothing inherently submissive about a shoe fetish or having your girlfriend have a will of her own, I was disinterested. Being on the receiving end of this a lot, via my inbox, it wasn’t something that pushed my buttons.

I’ve got a couple of take always here about the marketing too. I don’t think #switch sells as well, despite the absurdity that I know more people with switchy tendencies than people who would never even dabble in that direction. This is not fair to Robert India.

The book is at its strongest when it’s doing the gay stuff, and with one real quasi-cuckolding exception (during Robert’s self instigated experiment with chastity), if you like a bossy dude fucking dudes, that might be worth spending the $1 Canadian that the amazon.ca edition costs.
Category:  Ebook
Rating: o~o (2/5)
How I got it: Bought it
TL;DR: Perfectly fine writing, missed my kinks and hit a few personal bête noires as far as its treatment of femdom. This really should be filed under “M/m” and “switch” to do it justice.

Review: Taste by Beth Taylor

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It’s actually hard to give a good effort a bad review. I think Beth Taylor didn’t excactly rob me for $3.01, and I wouldn’t be gauche enough to demand a refund. However, I just couldn’t get into Taste: An Aristocratic Femdom Love Story by Beth Taylor,  mostly because of the writing style.

I tried, and I thought about not reviewing it at all. Maybe I simply didn’t give the characters a chance? It focuses on the love lives of a bunch of upper class British people with titles. It’s supposed to be about duty, but the duty element doesn’t really leap out while people are having impassioned email spats about their sexual desires and are supposed to be over educated and leading jet set lives.

Taste probably got off to a bad start by using the format of an email discussion, at least for me, I feel like I’m reading a chat log of someone’s RPG and I’m not really feeling it. I couldn’t make myself care about any of the characters or take their problems seriously. Here’s an excerpt of what I mean:

As he continues to lightly rub each of her feet, he glances over to see that smile of hers as she Skypes with her eldest brother – then smiles automatically in response, almost against his will, given his mood.

[Steph]: He’s watching The Masters wrap up.

[James]: Ask him if he’s finally gaining some sporting affection for Australia. If not, he should do!

[Steph, still smiling]: He’s in a quiet mood, Jamesy; not a great time for a piss-take, but when he finally tells me what’s on his mind, I’ll surely tease him afterwards for you.

[James]: Goodgood. Must dash, can’t wait to see you next week, it’s been too long.

Taylor, Beth (2013-05-05). Taste: An Aristocratic Femdom Love Story (Kindle Locations 455-464). . Kindle Edition.

Maybe some of the challenge was also that people were written as reacting to Steph’s random dominance, but I had no reason to find her as entrancing as the rest of the characters seemed to. Purely as a study of inter personal relationships and maudlin concepts, it’s not *that* bad. But while I wouldn’t burn this book, I wouldn’t advise you to buy it either. This is not “Twilight” bad, this is in the realm of being bad enough to be ignored but not bad enough to be fair or kind to pick on it.

Category: Short Ebook
Rating: o (1/5)
How I got it: Bought it
TL;DR: Overly creative formatting and characters I couldn’t get into. Scenarios had hints of being hot, but it needs more than a few sexy ideas to be worth it.

Review: Control by Charlotte Stein

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The new cover of Control, by Charlotte Stein, is a rare example of a femdom book designed to appeal to a woman and which also does not get hung up on the idea of making her into a pro or head mistress or some such. It’s fun, it’s light and it even has a wee little bit of romance. And a very mundane setting down to the fixtures and baked pasta dish (surprisingly memorable in the way that you remember those little details when you fall in love) and a submissive male lead I could actually see myself wanting to fuck. That, in a world of pornography that goes out of its way to sell male subs as walking creep farms or eunuchs, is a very rewarding achievement in its own right.

The protagonist, an owner/operator of a naughty book store “Wicked Words”, has her choice between Submissive Gabe and Dominant Andy. Meeting both men as potential workers in her shop, she sets about shagging Andy seven ways to Sunday while sexually teasing Gabe non-stop.

Suspend practicalities- Madison, our heroine, lives in a world where this much fucking is normal. It’s porn, so it can be excused with the jerky start when she falls into bed with Andy at first meeting- I imagine if anyone in this universe ordered a pizza it would come with extra sausage.

I will say that Dominant Andy did nothing for me. I generally like my subs with an aggressive, self assured streak, but i he had been the only sales point of the book I would have put it down. As it stands, I got thorough the scenes he was in by skimming or irritably muttering under my breath: “Go away, Andy!” I can’t tell if the writing was not as strong or if it just wasn’t my fetish.

But Gabe was a fun male submissive lead with zingy chemistry. At times it touched on the idea that he was submissive because he was broken, which is not an idea I encourage, but on the balance it also made him a pleasant mix of fragile and tough, in a way that made my overly maternal dominant heart go pitter-pat. I had no trouble believing this half of the triad was bound for steamy fun.

It’s also a good example of femdom outside of femdom tropes- Madison is nobody’s leather wearing Mistress, nobody cracks a whip and the focus here is on D/s in a relatively normal (for porn land!) setting. If only Andy was given a smaller part, no matter how much he’d been assigned to be a sexual catalyst.

Category: Erotic romance
Rating: o~o~o~o (4/5)
How I got it: Bought it!
TL;DR: Bookseller Madison gets a choice between buttoned up sub Gabe and bad boy bossy type Andy. Logically, she  screws both of them until book’s end.

Review: Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee

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The Silver Metal Lover is what I’d describe as stealth D/s. Tanith Lee was one of those writers that spoke to me when I didn’t quite have the vocabulary to describe what I wanted in a relationship. Her lyrical, often purple prose can border on hysterical at times, with everything having an impossible loveliness and an emotional weight of a ton of bricks. That was perfect fodder for a teenage girl weaned on fantasy and sci-fi, the kind who wants to have adventures and see beautiful things.

I got so wrapped up in this book I wept. I admit it can be sentimental and overwrought to the ponit of silly, but it’s one of my favourites.

And it’s a literal owner/property relationship story about an android programmed to be perfect for his owner, and a sixteen year old rich girl, Jane. Like many of her ilk, she needs to find herself and her sense of self worth, but this incarnation of the trope is relatively well done, with just the right note of cynical self awareness to tie it together.

When we meet our heroine she’s a trembly mess living in her mother’s shadow, on a future earth where technological progress has put much of the human race out of work and left everything poisonous. Jane’s got abominable idle rich friend, and lives in a cloud castle trying to do what she’s supposed to do according to her mother’s careful plans that even change the physical shape of her body, and wanting none of it.

But, seeing Silver, for the first time in her life she wants something. Initially repulsed and unable to explain where she’s terrified by the man machine that looks like a metal troubadour, in short order she conspires to acquire Silver and run away from home.

Silver is incapable of being anything other than perfect, an amazing lover, an artist, but also naturally pleasing in whatever capacity he’s needed. He is about as inherently submissive as you can get in that regard, not embodying the doormat ideal, but the compliance and service aspect.  his makes a good foil for Jane’s development- because he is compelled to be perfect for her, they embark on just the sort of relationship Jane needs to develop as the best possible person she can be, before they have to face the challenge of Silver’s existence as an artificial being.

I do think it did an interesting version of the standard plot of self-discovery-via-love. While waiting for a man to change your life is not necessarily the most healthy approach to life, the relationship depicted is an interesting use of the trope because Silver is not written like Aladdin-with-carpet showing her the world, but rather that the need to make a nest with Silver creates a place for her to do some developing and changing- and he manages to do something a lot of F/m fiction doesn’t seem to, which is make the need for each other feel mutual. and that’s part of the romance- although Silver gives everyone what they need, Jane finds a way to reach him as a person. The story, by presenting her with a perfect submissive, drives Jane to make the changes she needs to make in herself.

That’s actually something I don’t see much of- male doms can need to be “tamed”, but by and large the only taming that seems to happen to fictional female doms is death or dis-empowerment. Case in point, what keeps happening to Irene Adler.

I think the one criticism I might make is that initially it’s hard to spend long periods of time with Jane as a person because she’s so fragile and sad, but I think it’s part of what makes it a better example of dominant love- doms are not, for the most part, captains of industry or nobility. They have sad days and worry about things. This is very much a candi-floss book for the emotional. On the other hand it’s also what I’d describe of as the Twilight for the anti-Twilight but overly romantic girl.

So expect a heroine who waxes lyrical about how amazing her love is, expect that she will be derpy and feel alienated from her friends, but for once be relieved that the romance demands she learn to rule herself and her love and the ending cares about her being self actualized as a person.

Category: Sci-fi YA novel
Rating: o~o~o~o~o (5/5)
How I got it: Library
TL;DR: D/s without the fetish or the sadism, sweet and appropriate for a sensitive reader who doesn’t want to be submissive while they’re overcome with love.

Review: Fealty

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Not many images of thisFeatly
by Ms. Mahler

It’s an often unreasonable criticism of something to accuse it of resembling a romance novel. Actually this is one of Fealty’s core strengths as a short  story. It’s free too!

Fealty works for me because it’s basically one of my fantasies, albeit treated much more nicely. The Baroness of the story, finding herself widowed and free to marry whom she likes, intercedes in the life of her true love when he swears an unbreakable bond of fealty to the wrong lord, an enemy to herself and their lands. Holding her knight captive through magic, she keeps herself entertained while holding him prisoner. He, in turn must reconcile honour with his love for the lady who is holding him.

I compare it to a romance novel positively, and it has a lot of the core strengths of the genre. As I’ve talked about before, romance novels are female achievement stories- and there also tends to be a focus on hearth and home that has the practicalities of a chatelaine. Since so many femdom stories focus on a male audience first, it’s a nice change of pace to have a by-women-for-women approach that otherwise characterizes romance as a genre. Much like the genre it’s very sweet about the sex- the language is circumspect even when she’s literally riding his cock- lots of wetness and rubbing, less vulgar. I am a filthy mouthed bawd and it’s nice to see someone be a hell of a lot more subtle without losing the point- and I can believe Baroness Myrtle is getting off.

Particularly worth note is the deliberate non-inclusion of rape in it. Although magic/fantasy stories allow for plenty of scenarios of beguilement, the female lead makes scrupulously sure that, prisoner or not, her captive knight wants all the sex. I generally shade a lot darker- but I appreciate the relevancy to a broader audience.

Category: Short Fiction
Rating: o~o~o~o (4/5)
How I got it: Free!
TL;DR: Short and sweet, more tender than mean. Captivity with consent, with a very fantasy romance flavour.

Review: Erotic Tales Of Female Domination, Tomio Hall-Black

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Erotic Tales of Female Domination is an inexpensive ebook, containing three short stories, each one a closed BDSM scene, and each takes place within the boundary of a BDSM relationship. Everything, regardless of the theme, is consensual.

Tomio also writes over at “Masculine Submission“.

The first two short stories really did nothing for me. I don’t think they were that bad, but very dialog dependent, with very little ‘story’, much more sexual vinegettes than full tales in their own right. However the last of the three… yow.

Angela Makes The Rules– Angela, a loving girlfriend, and her boyfriend Andrew are trying out one of his D/s fantasies. With her boyfriend tied spread eagled to the bed and blindfolded, her tease and denials scene is all about control, with light touches and lots of talking. Of course, Angela discovers, she likes it.

Butt… Surrender– Loving D/s Pegging. It’s focused on the feeling of being owned from strapon sex. Read it to get a warm up for talking dirty without being very vulgar.

Be My Whore – This is the last and best of the stories. I had to go retrieve my socks from where they were blown from my feet. Whether it is the sexual pacing, the fact that it’s genuinely funny, or that there’s a little edge of cruelty, which I like, a make believe role play fantasy of whore, pimp and clients made me laugh and gave me warm and fuzzies.

Category: Fiction
Rating: o~o~o~o (4/5)
How I got it: Bought it!
TL;DR: Three loving femdom stories that focus on happy couples having fun. Everything is 100% realistic and the last story is particularly good!

Dominant Cunt Maracas (And Kegels)

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So, someone decided that the best possible way to train your vaginal muscles was weighted benwa balls. Or, as the official brand name of this toy is called, Luna Beads.

They come, like many sex toys marketed to women, in non-threatening pastels. To make the experience of stuff to shove in your vadge seem classier, you get a little black box and a white silk storage bag. The actual toy is designed with a degree of customization- you have powder blue or pink balls of different weights, two with a little loop string so you won’t lose them inside yourself and then have to guddle a loose, slippery ball out of the pocket up near your cervix, and a white silicone harness that holds two balls together (see picture) in which ever colour combination you like.

The outer balls are hollow, hard plastic with heavy disclaimers in your accompanying booklet about it being the being super safe kind. The weights inside appear to be rubber covered metal ball bearings, about the size and shape that you used to find in an old track ball mouse. You use it by shoving it into your cunt until it’s past the muscle that allows a vagina to hold things in. In theory the weights are supposed to tone your vagina while the balls within balls are supposed to provide sexual stimulation.

This is not a good product for a reason I will get into. An actual set of baoding balls, which are metal hand exercisers following a similar principle, generally vibrate in a vaguely harmonious way. If you like vibrations, which I get nothing from, this could be a good thing for a no electricity route to self gratification. Luna Beads, not so much.

Clunk-clunk-rattle-clunk. The internal balls do roll around freely with every motion of your hips. However I will provide the clarification that the do so by random, not very rhythmic bonking. If having something gently but abruptly clonk you on the inside of your vagina, hurrah. And don’t let smarmy marketing copy make you think you’ll be wearing this to the bank and the gym. Theses little clonks are surprisingly loud!

The net result is essentially about as erotic as the maraca it’s going to turn you into.  I’ve tried wearing these numerous times, including during my very vigorous masturbation style, which should have made them the most stimulating with how I get myself off. Usually I like having something heavy inside me, but this was not a good idea. However, again, sounding like a four year old’s attempt at percussion does not a happy dom make. A rattly dom, but not a happy one.

As far as a pelvic floor exerciser I’m undecided. I’ve been doing kegels since childhood, and have no trouble making my vagina do lots of micro-contractions. Wearing the balls over a prolonged period, like half an hour, at the heaviest weight, appears to produce some muscle pressure. But I have to feel like the inconvenience of their rattling isn’t to the benefit and it’s not like vaginal grip strength is easy to quantify.

At the end of the day, a strong pelvic floor, as well as muscular awareness, is good for both men and women. However I’m pretty sure that the defects in these rattles make them unsuitable for most people.

Hot/Cool Fictional Male “Subs”: Momo

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We’ve looked at subs who were supposed to be taken seriously in the stereotypical masculine role, from fantasy lead, Richard, to the original super hero, but that’s hardly the entire picture. male submission is no limited to performance in traditional roles. This next sub, very explicitly in an Owner/pet relationship and the work deals with loving someone despite not measuring up to the assumptions about what a man should be.

You’re My Pet: Momo

Kneeling before his new ownerMomo is the name picked out for the male lead in a manga and live action television show (Kimi wa Petto/Tramps Like Us) about an explicitly Owner/Pet relationship between a stressed out career woman (Sumire) and a dance prodigy (Takeshi). After finding Momo homeless and sick on the streets, Sumire rescues the diminutive young man. As he recovers in her apartment, he begs to stay, and her joking suggestion that he can only stay as her pet gets met by enthusiastic barking.

She names him “Momo” after her childhood dog, and the two set up living together. But, she declares that it won’t be a sexual relationship, she only sleeps with men with higher height, higher income and higher career/education. This is part of her challenge as a character. Sumire is non-conforming with gender expectations, with (for Japan) stereotypically masculine hobbies. At the story’s opening she had just gotten a demotion for hitting a sexual harasser. Frustrated in love and picked on by female coworkers for her unemotional demeanour, Sumire hides a very fragile heart inside a shell of hard hitting professionalism.

Momo provides her with the unconditional love of a pet. His challenge is dealing with his own career, as a modern dancer. Unable to continue as a ballet prodigy because of his height, Momo has turned his talents to modern dance. As well as proving the stereotype  of dancers being kinky, for him, being a pet lets him feel safe, loved and wanted. Sumire looks after him, providing him with food, shelter and bathes and cuddles him. sometimes he acts more dog like, especially to amuse her, and sometimes he’s more human, although she generally has to look out for him and he’s goofy and a little derpy about his responsibilities

Bath time!
Cuddles!

Momo’s boyish exhuberance is undimmed by Sumire’s controlling tendencies. But, don’t take my word for it, check out an english language translation of the manga!

A very typical exchange.

Although they are perfectly happy together, much of the tension comes from hiding their relationship from nosy people, and the fact that Sumire cannot reconcile the bliss she has at home with what she should want. The reintroduction of her college crush kicks off the main challenge of the story, where she attempts to date someone who is everything she thinks she wants. In practice she has a lot of trouble opening up and relaxing with Momo’s rival, and although she finds him hot, everything is depicted as stiff and awkward.  Faithful Momo allows her to lie and claim her pet is her brother in order to not scare his rival away, going along with her explanation and being supportive of her stated goals.

The rival!

Meanwhile of course, Sumire and Momo develop some healthy romantic tension. For Momo of course, this is forbidden and for Sumire, incredibly confusing. She’s only initially able to accept having a boisterous young man bouncing around the place by making it as unsexual as possible, and she also has to deal with redefining what she considers attractive.

Woof!

To be a bit circumspect in the name of spoilers, resolving the conflicts of the story, mean reconciling who people really are. Momo is able to be the most honest, and his subplot is pretty much just figuring out his dance career and how that might take him away from his beloved owner, while Sumire must come to terms with the fact that she doesn’t really want a guy who outdoes her in everything and that she likes who she is and likes that he likes who she is.
The manga VS the show

It’s a romance comic/show aimed at women, and it’s a conflict that’s not unfamiliar in femdom, when you first set out to try to make sense of what works for you. While M/f has to reconcile explaining that it’s not some sort of reactionary right wing abuse excuse,  F/m bumps up against gender expectations in a way that’s often a challenge for doms and subs alike. Although I’ve never personally worried about being gender conforming, this post is a bit personal for me, because I know that Sumire expressions of dominance are really very close to mine- wanting to look after my property, and liking playfulness. It’s also a good example of something that’s very blatant without ever really touching on the explicitly kinky nature of what’s going on in the story. Which is pretty valuable because not everything kinky that people do is dressed up with whips and leather.

Fiction often gives us the tools to discuss the things that work for us and codify them. The entire manga/show “Kimi wa Petto” is also charming in that the dominant is not a villain and she doesn’t have to stop being dominant to be able to love Momo, nor does he have to stop being her sub. There’s some aspects of “melt the ice princess” but she doesn’t stop being a pet owner in her thawed out state. And, Momo is presented as the one you want to root for in the comic. Cute, bratty, but above all loyal, Momo does not lose his sexiness just because he’s property, neither does he need to have a “hero” moment where he has to put his submissiveness aside to get things done.

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Next week, we’re getting thin on content again. I encourage you to post in the comments about a pairing you’d like to see, and why you feel the male half is a good example of a sub. It can be subtext or explicit, porn or not. The only rule is that the male sub needs to be either hot or be awesome. Or both!