Femdom Review “The Tied Man” by Tabitha McGowan

This is a tabloid thriller romp meets gothic romance into what I would probably describe more as caretaker whump appreciation of bad things happening to a male captive than anything traditionally femdom. Still, if your entry to this kink is more focused on the hurt/comfort male suffering part and the power fantasy of being a rescuer, this book has a lot to offer. And, if last week’s review (What Was Meant To Be) was too cozy for you, this one definitely won’t be.

Our protagonist is a mixed background,  loose cannon artist, Lilith Bresson, coerced by a wealthy aristocratic Blaine Albermarle to come to her remote castle resort and produce a commission.  There Lilith, or “Lily” meets Blaine’s pretty but damaged boytoy Finn, and comes to discover that the resort offers more than a relaxing getaway to discerning patrons. Our heroine has stumbled into one of those rich people sex-torture clubs where everything is available for the right price, and Finn is one of the prize victims in Blaine’s stable.

After a prickly start, Finn and Lilith begin to form a connection, even as Blaine seeks to ensnare more subjects in a web of blackmail. A cascade of badness follows. Everything and the kitchen sink happens to Finn in loving and lurid detail, while Lilith tries to fight back and wrestle with her own demons.

The tabloid framing, one with a paparazzi lurking for her as a minor celebrity they aren’t sure if they should destroy or worship, and the tawdry glamor of Lilith’s politician father, are equally integral to the setting, seaming together to amp up the drama while giving the audience a taste of a power fantasy of our own, one where it’s plausible one very angry young woman can destroy a criminal network in the manner of a more traditional hero slaying a dragon. If the BDSM without limits brothel with real sex slaves angle is a bit far fetched to read straight (not to mention the logistical overhead of the sheer level of blackmail gluing everyone to the situation), the added concerns of talk shows and award ceremonies almost serve to ground the story’s violent conspiracy excesses as precisely the sort of thing that same sort of media purports to be true.

Thus you can just absolutely feel the nasty, UK Grim atmosphere leaking through, a sort of tonal filter much like a Russian novel’s typical, almost hysterical bleakness. If the characters are largely trapped on an island castle at the whims of its master, so also is the setting one where leaving the resort is just being on a different sort of covert island torture prison.

There isn’t anything you would associate with Lilith being a traditional dominant, and indeed she’s put through almost as much shit as the male lead. However, the fanfiction classified aesthetic of whump is something I talked about before as a place where a lot of the porn for dommes hides. If the damsel-in-distress trope has a lengthy history of being a covert excuse for bondage and lingering over a helpless feminine victim and her suffering, here too is the gender flip option.

This is a great read for a chilly autumn evening, where you want something juicy and just a little bit horrific to titillate you into the shivers.

TL;DR 

Imagine a role reversal Orpheus and Eurydice, if the captive was in as close to actual hell as possible. Caretaker + whump victim struggle their way to an escape, with very much a flavour of a fox trying to get out of wolf’s den, only to exit into a forest where the hounds are already baying for a hunt.