Wow, never in a million years would I have thought more women than men would be featured. Maybe it depends on what you call erotica, but in Harlequin Spice covers, or Joey Hill covers, or Ellora’s Cave, I recall seeing men. But maybe those are “romantics” not erotica?

Thanks for the link!

Kristina Lloyd and Mathilde Madden have an interesting site (Erotica cover watch) which talks about erotica, feminism, sexual politics etc. The site has an underlying objective/ campaign, which is to get men on the covers of straight women’s erotica. There are a number of interesting posts on that blog of which I’ve put a link to one below. KL has also written some very interesting posts about female submission and kink on her own site and on Lust Bites which are worth a look.

http://eroticacoverwatch.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/erotica-cover-watch-the-erotica-project-by-slugocki-and-wilson-pub-cleis-press/

middle class white Anglo heteronormative upbringing

I resemble that remark.

I only know this because long ago, I was interested in a man who said he was “the master.” Kept repeating this and I’m like, WTF? Then a girlfriend broke it down for me and I– Well, the reaction was not favorable.

Anyway, I dug a little deeper (thank you, Google! all the info, none of the dungeons) and got a pretty good idea of what it’s about and that this person was NOT (from his presentation, anyway, and the warning signs I read about) a good master and that good masters are few and far between. I got the definite sense that many D/s and M/s relationships cross from consensual to abuse, but that is ONLY my impression from what I read.

That said, as I’ve gotten distance from that “master,” I’ve started to become curious about trying some of the milder individual components here and there, but the Dude is most definitely not. C’est la vie.

A funny way to capture my view would be the movie Secretary: I approved as a viewer of the growth of their relationship from BDSM to something more egalitarian.

Funny you should say that. I didn’t think their relationship evolved to anything other than what it was meant to be, that is, master/slave. It was far beyond a dom/sub relationship, but, as you say, it was egalitarian because they seemed to both be playing by the rules.

At the end, when he washes her, that’s part of the master/slave relationship, wherein the master takes care of his slave because he doesn’t allow her to do it for herself.

Notice how he gets her to stop cutting herself. He says, “You will not cut yourself ever again” (or something like that) and poof! She stops. After all the time she’s spent cutting and therapy she’s been in to deal with it and he says, “Stop it” and she does.

That said, in the lifestyle lingo, he’s a “good” master because he’s actually holding up his end of the relationship where (IMO as an outsider looking in), the trouble with many, many of these types of relationships are that one partner doesn’t abide by the rules (by hook or by crook) and abuses the other one’s willingness to abide by the rules. If it’s a Dom/Master, they can get carried away with not taking care of their subs/slaves. If it’s a sub/slave, they can manipulate everything until they’re actually the one in the power position.

I suspect that the egalitarianism of a D/s or M/s relationship (i.e., where both are playing by the rules; the sub obeys and the dom takes care of the sub) is a balance very rarely hit and by very few couples.

I’m thinking of BDSM as a type of harmless erotic play, not as a stage or as a gender. As a stage or a way of life, I would probably pathologize it. A funny way to capture my view would be the movie Secretary: I approved as a viewer of the growth of their relationship from BDSM to something more egalitarian.

To some extent this is a debate between Feminist Theory and Queer Theory: BDSM is not problematized in queer theory the way it is in feminist theory. But I fear talking more about these disciplinary struggles and competing theoretical commitments would take us very far afield (because it has to do with how you conceive of gender — as discursive, performative, or something else.).

From what you’ve written, I get the impression that you’re thinking of BDSM as a stage which people might go through. Is that right? I don’t think that’s what Sarah Frantz is arguing when she wrote that “BDSM is a sexual orientation both analogous to and concurrent with Kinsey’s continuum of heterosexuality/homosexuality.” I got the impression that she was saying that, just as homosexuality is considered a fixed sexual identity, so too can BDSM be a fixed identity.

As I mentioned, though, she outlined those ideas in blog posts, so there wasn’t space to give any of the evidence on which she was basing her theories, and as I know next to nothing about the topic, I really have no way of assessing their validity.

Given my cluelessness on the topic (which is no doubt apparent from the number of questions I keep asking, and the way I keep referring back to Sarah’s posts), I should probably not have commented on it at all, but it sounds like you know more than I do, so I’m interested in knowing (a) what you think and (b) why you think it.

Just to clarify, it is the post with the largest discrepancy between views and comments, although there aren’t that many views.

As for the “end point”, you’re quite right, I don’t mean temporally. Maybe “goal” would have been better, although that’s too static. I am an egalitarian through and through, and a relationship that’s based on servility – even voluntary servility — is not romantic to me.

BDSM can be a healthy way, I guess, to explore some existential issues that arise in human relations, but this requires separating psychological surrender from rank victimhood, something I don’t think occurred in the Hill book.

I’ve been pressing the refresh button quite a bit while waiting for your response, but I doubt that alone would take it to the top of the list.

while I think it can be a wonderful way, in art, in real life, whatever, to explore the boundaries of self and other, it’s a way point, not an end point

So what would you see as an end point? Having spent so long writing about death, I’d tend to see that as an end point for all of us (or at very least a rather significant point of transition for those who believe in the afterlife), regardless of our sexual orientation(s), but somehow I don’t think that’s what you mean.

Victoria – I love what you wrote, and I completely agree about not being ashamed.

Laura — so glad this is a blog and not a peer reviewed journal, or my overlooking those important pieces you mention would be grounds for rejection of my post.

I think Professor Frantz and I agree on the BDSM question. What bothered me about the Hill book was that BDSM was presented approvingly as a way of life, and while I think it can be a wonderful way, in art, in real life, whatever, to explore the boundaries of self and other, it’s a way point, not an end point. But again, maybe reading the second book would have changed my view.

It’s interesting to me — this post is one of my top read posts, up there with my top ten lists. And yet only two comments. What gives? Is it mainly randy men who came here after a google search for hot sexy titty or what?