Only he's fantasy.
The thing about that is that in reality, those men do exist and those scenarios do happen, frequently. There are whole sites dedicated to the fetish world. The problem with this was, the person I spoke to saw pictures of what "I" as a top do for my bottoms.
This is relevant to the writers world from several points of view. First, the marketing aspect. If you're truly a fetish person AND a fetish writer, even if it's erotic romance, you're going to have a hard time selling to the mainstream unless you can pull off what E. L. James did and let the world know you're not really kinky and that it's really twilight fanfic gone mainstream without ripping off Twilight blatantly. Many fetish authors aren't fetish and couldn't really deal in the fetish world.
For our writers, a few definitions:
Top=the one doing. Not necessarily a Dominant, but not the one being done to
Bottom=the one being done to. Not necessarily a submissive but not the one doing.
Dominant and submissive can imply a power exchange.
The writer in me wants to go into my local dungeon, notepad and pen in hand and ask questions, take notes. Basically, the writer in me would put the Kinky Kontingent under a microscope. The Dominant in me wants the writer in me to understand what I do is intrinsic, taught to me and there's much more going on than what's being seen. The Writer in me yearns to understand the reality of a beating.
Let's take a simple spanking scene. Just a short few swats on the ass, and break it down. This is adult content FYI and strap on play.
Ronan groaned, pressing his mouth against Valerieʹ shoulder. Grateful for the contact, Valerie continued to buck against Siddellaʹs cock, enjoying the contact of skin against skin while Siddella rubbed Ronanʹs swollen cock up and down her cheek.
Ronan slapped Valerieʹs ass cheek with his bare hand.
The sting burned, forcing Valerieʹs eyes shut. ʺItʹs your body, my prince,ʺ she cried through pain that was sure not to destroy her now.
Ronan slapped Valerieʹs ass again, hitting the other cheek.
Pain flared over her globes, her nipples hardening even further from the sting.
ʺYou like the spankings, donʹt you?ʺ Ronanʹs voice was gritty, hoarse from coming but his lips were firm against her skin. He licked a trail of fire up her arm, sending a shudder through her.
Valerie began purring. ʺYes, I like when your hands are on
me, my prince.ʺ
In that little bit of a scene, what happened was this: Ronan had already established trust with Valerie AND Siddella. Valerie trusted him from the earlier bit in the book where we established that she had a goal and so did Ronan. Even Siddella had a goal but hers was minimal in this part of the story. An emotional bond was deepened by his question. Her response, both physically and mentally reinforced that bond. Later on there is a little aftercare that helps the subs in question come to grips with what was done so they understand that Ronan is guiding them from his heart. The lesson Valerie had to learn involved parts of her life at 40+ years of age. Aftercare addresses the actual mentality going on.
But all you'd see in reality was the spanking, and her taking the dildo in her ass, and if you stood by close enough, you'd hear their dialogue.
In Reality: people play all the time like this and harder only after they've talked extensively.
In FICTION unless the book is a pure BDSM story where the heroine or hero is TOTALLY NEW, then we have to focus more on a deeper plot. In Gift of Her Submission, three different heroines are entering the kink world at three different stages of their lives. Siddella has been kinky all her life and yearns to explore love through pain, Valerie's explored some but as a cougar she wants more, and Casey, is totally new to all of Ronan's charms, yet seeks out comfort in a non traditional method. A little bit of dialogue and talk happens throughout the stories, interweaving Ronan's past into you the reader.
In fantasy, the kink still has to make make sense.
In reality, I don't know why my bottoms laughed when I mentioned that the pill I was about to lick off her back fell off her ass. (Well, I do know, it was funny!) But that could be a fetish all itself.
I felt like a monster after my incident. But I've been told by others both Scene aware and Non that I'm not. YOU can however as an author use that as a plot device to craft a proper evil dominant. The evil guy always gets the plot lesson wrong anyway and that's the reason for his or her demise.
If you're curious about Gift of Her Submission, it's on Amazon for a song!
If you need a menage fix, Menage Bound is here for you.
I'm probably as vanilla as one can get. But as a writer who is trying her hand at romance, I like reading erotica books. I like discovering the remarkable differences in the genres through the creativity of others. I am not sure if I agree with your point about someone who is a fetish person and a fetish writer having a harder time selling. Nine times out of ten, I'll try an erotica novel espeically if the author admits to knowing something about what they are writing about but maybe it is more true with the mainstream.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find very trite, is reading erotica turned into BDSM 101 books. I like the insertion of reality into novels, no matter the genre. But really, I don't need to read the "Okay, we are going to calmly sit down and nail what it is we agree to out in this contract". I want to read the action, the scene, what is being done to the characters and by to, In a fiction sense, I don't care if they've spent months talking about it before getting to that point. I can bring a little common sense to the table and persume that consent has been given and it is all being done sanely on the pages of fiction.
The fetish person will be more open to the fetish book, the fetish writer may not know how to market his or her book without taking the piss from unsupportive or assholish people in their life.
DeleteI've stopped more authors from giving more than a one sentence explanation about the 101 part as I believe most of our readers already KNOW what has gone on. Most authors understand that readers are readers. We're good with this :)
"In the dungeons" already implies no talking is going to take place."In the dungeons" already means a contract was signed and sealed with whomever you were going to encounter inside, before entering the dungeon. With this warrior mindset prevailing, there is very little room for reasoning. Either you want to abuse or be abused."in the dungeon", you do get the oddball who still wants to reason, but they are at least creative about it. a man or a girle would walk around with a leather mask over the face, being bound in chains by the hands and feet by the dungeon master, with an envelope in his mouth or her mouth. What is in the envelope, is your guess. So generally, communication in this realm is all that much obscure. Hence the violence, because verbalizing the urge demeans the act. Sacé
ReplyDeleteIn the dungeon means just that actually. It implies nothing but two or more consenting adults in the dungeon. If a contract is in place, it's not always clear. What violence? I mean aside from the perceived violence of a singletail, signal whip or flogger, there is no violence. Communication in the real world AND in the written world is FAR from obscure.
DeleteThat is a whole lot of conjecture for that person to make without any proper context, that is a banal assumption.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't presume a mystery writer is capable of actually going out and committing the crimes they may be writing about...so why would it be any different for an erotica writer?
I have a post that actually answers that:
Deletehttp://authorspromotingauthors.blogspot.com/2011/11/erotic-corner-readers-fantasies-of.html
My GF suggested said person involved in my incident was projecting. Possible...I don't know.
Hi Anna,
DeleteThe difference between committing a crime and having an adventurous sex life is vast. The one is based on a criminal act, the other is generally legal (depending on the laws of the specific country) and depends on the sense of adventure and the measure of first hand experience of the erotica writer. a Good food critic or travel journalist without first hand experience, well, just sucks. Can you imagine reading a travel article about a destination which the author never visited? Granted, if it is well researched and well written, the author may succeed in writing a good article because of their flair and excellent imagination. We have to sort for ourselves if we are looking for a book where the authors imagination and flair is on display, or if we want a book which will lift the veil to expose what happens behind doors which some of us tremble to enter, and never will. @ Sascha, Thanks for the correction, it should have read "perceived" violence. I hold that the perception of violence, love and communication, as all other things, is in the eye/ear/mouth/body/heart/brain of the beholder.Sacé
Sascha,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to comment to say, thank-you for this post. As always, you take us expertly into the world of erotica writing and ground us in reality.
This strikes me as being an important article--you may want to consider having it linked on your website or copying it from here, to there :O)
Thanks to Kate and Anna for commenting and Sacé thanks for sharing your insight. I do think Anna's point was more on what the person assumed based on something they saw out of context and then proceeded to take how that made them feel out on Sascha.
I do not think Anna meant to imply that committing a crime was like having an adventurous sex life...I think the comment was more along the lines of not assuming writers who write about warriors are actually going to go out and have sword fights in the streets. But I really shouldn't speak for other people, so I digress.
~Tina-Sue