O Review

Where Is The 50Shades Of Femdom?

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Or: When are we going to see a femdom best seller?

A woman's grey shawl, pale, softly draped on a white mannequin torso, that is also wearing 2 strands of pearls
Grey shawl image borrowed from etsy.

I get this as a compliment/question, when people find out about the whole femdom writer thing. People assume that I’m positioned to write the next Fifty Shades of Grey. Only for F/m relationships. Unfortunately as awesome as it would be to produce a work of BDSM erotica that’s so popular that you can buy licensed pyjamas and softcore sex toys based on it, that’s not going to happen. Not without a bunch of variables being taken into account at least.

It’s not just that the average writer no more makes the best seller list than the average person who runs makes the Boston Marathon. The success of 50shades is also part of the genre that birthed it, and the cultural underpinnings that define pop culture’s approach to sexuality. But first, before I delve in a little deeper, a back story about the book for those living under a rock.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a trilogy about a BDSM relationship between virgin Anastasia Steele, the sub, and a billionaire hunk dom, Christian Grey. It not only crawled from ebook sales into the mainstream, but more to the point, began as a Twilight fan fiction where the two leads of that franchise were stripped of the supernatural and sent to college. When that got popular, the author changed the names to avoid getting sued and monetized it, building a following from the amateur reader/writer online groups. Pay attention, this origin story is just as important as the BDSM parts of the books.

One of the important things that defines 50shades is how classically part of the romance genre it is, including its parentage and all the various things that combined together, even more than just people wanting to read about kink in general, that pushed it to the forefront. Part of its success is that it is extremely formulaic.

Critics of the books get bogged down in two places, how badly written it is, which I think is unfair even if it’s true, and other critics point out how poorly representative it is to healthy relationships, kinky or otherwise. News articles trying to be click bait hammered the End of Feminism angle, trying to argue that all women are femsubs and that’s because having jobs and personal autonomy is not natural for them,  something they’ve been saying every single time people pay attention to women’s fiction. Which, moving onto my next point, includes the genre of romance, a pretty major segment of the publishing industry as a whole.  (By the way, that’s 39.3% of book sales according to some estimations, while other figures give romance 55% of the paperback book market.)

If you’re a dude, and/or don’t read romances, you probably have a mental image about pirates cutting ladies out of their corsets and really bad writing- and you’d be about half right. Romance has its highlights and low points, including everything from literary masterpieces to the throwaways you can get at the grocery store with titles like “The Millionaire Italian’s Lover”. But, because it’s such a big genre it straddles many other genres, so you may have a fantasy story with a romance in it,  or a sci-fi story with a romance, etc… It’s a little more than the story of a romantic relationship, although that’s one of the things all romances have in common. But, as a bit of a background- the genre is unabashedly female audience dominated, including a fair deal of pandering, and romance novels generally have something to them that compliments the “romance”. In the case of  50shades, BDSM is providing the compliment, and provides the tension to drive the story and create conflict.

While everyone who is not asexual and/or aromantic likes the idea of relationships, the genre gets its power from the fact that historically,  women dealt with the limitations that participating in the world can only be facilitated by the presence of a male romantic partner. Looking at the genre at its earliest days, writers like Jane Austen didn’t just want to pair off people because it was sooooo romantic, but were writing about making the sort of life choices that defined what freedoms their female characters would have. In her time period, Austen was mostly making a point about sensible matches with people you can respect. Okay, so what does Pride and Prejudice have to do with BDSM erotica?

Why, everything of course! Keep reading, I have a point here!

Read more

Hot/Cool Fictional Male “Subs”: Richard (Sword/Seeker of Truth)

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Just because I didn’t like a series doesn’t mean it’s not  good example. In this particular instance, I’m going to look at a fictional male sub character who is cast as being cool, awesome and all around great with inclusion of pretty explicit and blatant D/s. There’s nothing stealth here.

And it’s not surprising. While there’s always the odd image of a tied up, tortured hero to tease viewers and readers, male submission is just so inherently normal that it’s surprising there’s not more things with such strong kink focus.

Richard: The Hero Is A Sub

Our Hero Who Is Always RightThe “Sword of Truth” books are a series of fantasy novels following the standard tropes of chosen one heroes, magic swords and the author’s own particular love for Libertarianism and femdom. Writing about this one is accepting that just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s not a good example, because these books are bloody kinky- and more to the point, it’s about as close as it gets to a femdom Gor without being some sort of female supremacy porn story or other niche work. It is also popular enough to have rated its own television series, the Seeker of Truth.

And it’s chock full of plot facilitated female dominance. It starts with the canonical female love interest/lead, Khalan is a “Mother Confessor”, a magical being gifted with the ability to make anyone fall passionately and unrevokeably in love with her to the result of perfect obedience. And your only protection is to love her that much already. And guess who, of course just naturally loves her as much as one of those magical slaves?

But the series doesn’t stop with Khalan. By book one we are introduced to an order of leather wearing, pain magic wielding Mord-Sith, who train people as pets and demand to be called “Mistress”. Later, another group of matriarchs, this time magical wizard trainers, pop up and incidentally have a penchant for abducting magic men and locking collars around their necks.

Rada'han

(To which the wearer in wizard training must willingly lock around his own neck)

And then another whole book has Richard slaved to a woman by magic, so he’s forced to be her fake husband. By plot convenience, although his love for Khalan is labelled as True, Richard is constantly abducted and dragged away by one woman after another, with them all being cast as sexy, hot bitches who want to jump Richard’s bones until they rattle. And his constant slave/prisoner status is never considered to detract from him and his masculinity. Even when the poor bugger is raped by a Mord-Sith.

Woo!

Rather the reverse- the noble suffering is seen as something that makes him cool and is used as a stand in for depth, as although he becomes emperor of the whole god damn world by the end, with all slavishly acting like he is Libertarian Jesus, he is explicitly allowed to have fallen in love with a Mord-Sith (simultaneous to Khalan) and sympathize with the numerous ladies who want him to be their property or teach him by force. The books have a bad habit of making the lead eventually show up everyone and everything by being just that awesome (all while being a “simple woods’ guide”), and I would not call them well written. But… when pop culture normally limits male submission to a punch line or a temporary inconvenience… the author managed to convince people to pay him a lot of money to talk about his submissive fantasies. And then film them without any self concious irony.

Superman, my last example, was very quiet about the femdom elements, but this one is loud, proud and in your face. He might not be *my* ideal male sub, but Richard is lovingly rendered, with highly successful sales, as the Best Person Ever and is widely adored by fans of the work.

Book Review: The Mistress Manual (The Good Girl’s Guide to Female Dominance) by Mistress Lorelei

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Amazon's cover image for the ebook

The Mistress Manual (The Good Girl’s Guide to Female Dominance) by  Mistress Lorelei

A caveat before I begin: Mistress Lorelei, by look of her blog, is an intelligent kick ass feminist. This is in no way a criticism of her as a writer or as a dominant. She hits a lot of great points, and it’s not the worst book that could fall into the hands of a novice.

It’s just… it’s another guide on how to act like a pro-dom. It’s like if you were a gay man and all you could find was advice on how to please clients as a rent boy or acting like a rent boy to spice up your marriage. It’s not a how to for dominants who also happen to be women, it’s a guide to pleasing male subs by taking on a role to satisfy what they want.

She gets some bits okay, like talking about post scene whoopsies and bad feelings. She clearly wants her audience to feel empowered and comfortable. Unfortunately she’s still stubbornly clinging to the idea that the reason to be a fem dom is better participation by the male in housework. She at least suggests you might find this leads to better sex but… not because it’ll make you horny. I recognize that many women are not comfortable with their sexuality and prefer ‘fun’ over ‘fucking wet’. And getting listened to, at least in the bedroom might even spill into confidence in other areas- I know when my desires are being respected I’m much happier. But nowhere is it stressed by Lorelei that you’re doing this for you.

For example in asserting your authority:

“It is also your duty to rename his genitalia. The name should emphasize his juvenile and inferior status without being so mocking as to render him impotent. A slightly childish name for his penis and two alliterative names for his testicles will equip you to tease and torment him to your heart’s content.”

Or

“You should know that even when he is bound to a backboard or forced into ladies’ clothing, you must supply him with fantasies (the script) or his mind will wander.”

This isn’t about the dominant. She sells the archetypes, nurse maid, governess, etc… talks about gender bending and dudes in diapers. It’s not all bad, of course and I’m not against male pleasure. Ideally both parties in a D/s thing are getting their needs met. She even gives dating advice for single doms. But Lorelei is oddly silent about being a dom woman with a vanilla man or broaching the topic with a partner from the women’s perspective or even any indication that it’s ever the reader’s idea.

Instead her instructions often read like a client’s wish list. Now there’s a long history of sex tips for women in the Cosmo school of “touch him on the penis!” and man pleasing, so she can’t be faulted for not deviating. And many, many people get off best when their partner is horny, but this isn’t doing sub guys any favours either.

Lorelei writes as if all sub men are cross dressers or adult babies or all manner of extra fetishes. She puts a lot of emphasis on roleplay scenarios where you are the Governess or the Nursemaid or similar. The guy is the sexual deviant being catered to by a woman understanding his unique sexual needs- this is not about her sexual perversion. We’re back to re-enforcing the idea that anything female and dominant is odd and that sub guys are just men with elaborately complicated demands.

Don’t get me wrong, she definitely cares about her audience. For example when she’s talking about developing authority by dressing up:

“A simple black T-shirt and matching jeans can be as effective a costume as all the leather-and steel regalia in the world. You need to decide how much of your submissive’s visual sense you want to please, how much you want to tease. Also, frankly, how much do you enjoy dressing up? If you love it, you can choose elaborate outfits by fantasy. Or you can relax and say the hell with it. You’re the Domme, remember.”

This is a huge leap better than Elise Sutton’s guide to being a highly specific male fantasy. I think if I had a criticism here it’s that in this context “Mistress” is being used to mean a professional dominant and not in the generic sense. It’s another roleplay scenario being put on as surely as if the woman was dressing up as a naughty school girl.

Category: How to Guide
 Rating: o~o~o (3/5)
How I got it: Borrowed
TL:DR: A good gift for a vanilla woman you want to top you, or someone who doesn’t like thinking about their own sexual desire to dominate. Very much a “Vanilla Guide To Being A Dominatrix”. Not my cup of tea.