*Note: This review contains material not suitable for minors.
Bad Brad, Cheryl Dragon
This 2007 erotic m/m short from Loose-Id begins with Matt barging in to a Hanukkah party and dragging out his lover, Brad, who had cheated on him. They fought and have not spoken in weeks: “Matt reminded himself that Brad has cheated and deserved to be punished. Matt bore some responsibility, though. If he had been a stronger Dom, Brad wouldn’t have cheated.”
The rest of the “story” involves a long scene of BDSM. Although we are told that this sex has all kinds of significance to these men and their relationship, I can’t say I was particularly invested in Matt and Brad as people. But that doesn’t seem to be the point of writing like this.
The writing in this book reminded me of a National Geographic Special. You know how there’s a guy on a jeep, with a telephoto lens, and he’s whispering to the camera, describing what he sees? Like, “There’s the lion. He sees the gazelle. The gazelle doesn’t notice a thing.” Some examples:
“A Dom truly in love had to use extra caution and control.”
“Matt had to test his Sub’s limits.”
“His Dom wanted to fuck him!”
When I read a sentence like :”The sub licked and smeared the reward over himself as best he could while cuffed” I can’t help but hear a neutral male voice intoning: “the California mule deer constantly moves its ears, checking for predators…”
If any word screams sexy to me, it’s “causing”, as in this sentence:
“Then Matt shed his pants and briefs, causing Brad’s cock to throb for any satisfaction.”
Sometimes Bad Brad was a brain teaser. Just try to figure out whose POV this is:
“He unexpectedly slapped Brad’s ass hard.”
If context is any indication, it’s supposed to be Matt’s. Amazing, the ability a Dom has to to surprise his own self!
Sometimes, words were used in unexpected ways:
“Brad felt an intense release of trust wrack his body.”
The Hanukkah connections were touching. Matt, clearly a religious Jew, situates the action in the context of the rededication of the Temple: “They both need to rededicate themselves for the relationship to work.” Later, he muses that his mother would not condone the creative uses to which he puts the candle wax. And when Brad reasons that a little rug burn on his knees is worth it, I can just hear the ghosts of the victorious Maccabees murmuring in approval: their sacrifices were, too.
This story was $2.49. I happened to be seeking out m/m Hanukkah stories for my blog, but I honestly don’t know why someone wouldn’t just read literotica.com for free.
Here’s the blurb for this short:
Lucas McKenzie figures spending the holidays with his annoying roommate’s family is better than being alone on campus. The last thing he expects is to lust over Sam’s brother — or for Nate to actually want him back.
They hide their attraction during Hanukkah celebrations, but behind closed doors, Lucas and Nate can’t keep their hands (or mouths) off each other. Nate’s only looking for a bit of holiday fun, and amazing sex with a hot virgin definitely fits the bill.
Yet as the candles burn, Nate and Lucas begin to realize eight nights will never be enough.
This one was better than Bad Brad, but I much preferred the similar story told by Astrid Amara in Holiday Outing.
There’s a lot of explicit sex. The writing was fine –certainly better than Bad Brad – but the story was very uninspired, with a real paint by numbers feel to me.
I’m putting my foot in it with this comment but here goes: You know how people say romance is porn for women? I am reminded of that when I read something like this, or Bad Brad. I can’t see how anyone would be connected to the “characters”, and I ask myself how all of the talk of love and emotional connection functions if it does not succeed aesthetically. Does it serve a justificatory need for the reader?
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#1 by Magdalen on December 12, 2009 - 5:31 pm
I don’t personally have a problem with “porn for women” because that suggests to me stories written to arouse and satisfy (yes, that’s what I’m talking about) women. Now, we can talk all day about what’s acceptable in “porn for women” vis a vis the objectification of women/men/sex, etc. (Maybe m/m stories are successful because we don’t mind objectifying gay guys…?) Possibly for some readers, it’s important that the characters having sex also have some feelings for each other.
For me, characters in a book are either more sexual in their perspective, or they’re more romantic. Clearly most books these days feature both sexual experiences and romance, but I think books are either leaning more toward erotica (sexual experiences) or romance. I’m not saying that the peeps in erotic books can’t fall in love; I’m saying the book isn’t about them falling in love.
But bad writing is bad writing — and it’s going to get in the way of either the sexuality or the romance, or both. So a badly written book isn’t as uh, satisfying. Right?
#2 by Ann Somerville on December 12, 2009 - 6:29 pm
Goodness the writing sucks, but your review entertains to the max
#3 by Jessica on December 12, 2009 - 6:34 pm
Magdalen,
I guess when I wrote that last paragraph, I was thinking something along the lines of …”Oh for Pete’s sake. You want to write about two guys fucking to arouse readers. Just do it then and don’t bother with the emotional stuff, which is ridiculous. Why not be more like visual porn which doesn’t feel the need to cocoon sex within an emotional narrative? It’s more honest.”
But tht was wrongheaded. You are right that the issue is really the writing. A talented writer could probably get the emotional piece through in an equally explicit and sex focused story.
Ann — well, I’m practicing my snark for tomorrow’s review.
#4 by Ann Somerville on December 12, 2009 - 7:01 pm
” I’m practicing my snark for tomorrow’s review.”
mommy….
#5 by Magdalen on December 12, 2009 - 7:11 pm
Jessica — Well, I’m all for the book that’s just yummy sex! But I suspect some readers will want to know that the characters have a HEA or HFN, and that usually means, “I love you and want to keep fucking you and only/mainly you!”
Case in point: I enjoyed the Lauren Dane book set in real world (i.e., not futuristic) Laid Bare. Good sexy fun. But did I “believe” in the HEA for all three people? Not really. Then again, I didn’t really care. (The marriage might work, but the third guy — maybe, maybe not.) And that was a book that tried to be as convincing as a romantic romance as it did an erotica romance. For me, it’s squarely in the erotica column.
#6 by Sarah Frantz on December 12, 2009 - 9:31 pm
Ugh. Using BDSM to fix relationship issues like cheating is just a Bad Idea all around, IMO. Doesn’t deal with the underlying issues of why someone cheated. Just…no. Sounded like bad writing AND bad BDSM.
#7 by heidenkind on December 12, 2009 - 10:58 pm
The only thing that would have been more confusing is if Matt had unexpectedly slapped his own ass.
#8 by Ann Somerville on December 12, 2009 - 11:26 pm
@heidenkind:
Now you make me want to write a BDSM story with the sub suffering from Alien Hand Syndrome
#9 by Tumperkin on December 13, 2009 - 5:53 am
You raise some interesting questions in this review, Jessica vis-a-vis writing subject matter and writing skill.
The author is apparently a female writing M/M and BDSM. Whether or not she has any personal experience of a BDSM lifestyle is unclear, but Sarah, who plainly knows of what she speaks, doesn’t seem to like the sound of the way BDSM is treated.
When writing about a lifestyle one does not practice, how important is it to get that *right (assuming that there is a *right* way to depict)? And does good writing give you a get out jail free card if you get it wrong?
I’ll be very interested to see what you make of The Palace of Varieties. I don’t see it as a romance myself – although it has a hint of romance in it that I appreciated – but it’s unashamedly sexually gratuitous with a very deliberate aim of being titillating. See this amusing article in which James Lear discusses the fact that women like his “cock-filled gay porn”.
Of course, Lear himself is gay and therefore *owns* the lifestyle of which he writes. I’d be very interested to discover, when you review this, if you’d have viewed it any differently if (a) it was written by a woman and/or (b) it was poorly written. Is there a difference between a good writer writing something with the aim of titillating and a bad writer doing the same thing? Not in terms of intent. Maybe it just makes the reader feel better about what they’re doing?
And what about appropriating lifestyle choices to write about? Sarah – I’ve noticed that your reviews on DA of BDSM novels tend to concentrate quite a lot on how well/ realistically the lifestyle is portrayed. I wonder whether that’s something the majority of readers of these books care about. Does that matter? Should it?
Fascinating stuff.
#10 by Jessica on December 13, 2009 - 7:23 am
Tumperkin, I’m not sure if you saw this, but a while back some comments on a review Sarah did sparked a debate on whether reading BDSM through this lens was ok. Teddypig, the only gay man I know of in Romland, and others, felt strongly that the demand for “realism” in BDSM was not warranted.
Sarah addresses this a bit in a review she just posted at DA.
Here’s a summary of her view as it is evolving:
“I’m learning to try to separate my reading of a BDSM story into two distinct tracks (I say try, because I’m not close to being there yet): (1). how completely fucked up is the representation of the physical reality of BDSM? (AKA: how much of a fantasy is the BDSM play?; or, what percentage of people would be hurt if they attempted what the characters do?); (2). how completely fucked up is the emotional realism of the BDSM depicted? Getting either right indicates a familiarity with BDSM, either through experience or really good research, but I’m much more likely to forgive fuck-ups in the first track if the second track does a good job. In fact, in my opinion, fuck-ups in the second track are MUCH more dangerous.”
When I read “Bad Brad”, I felt unconvinced that Brad’s cheating could be fully explained by how Matt performed as a Dom. But I hesitated on it … what am I assuming that “Dom” covers? Only what they do when naked? Maybe “Dom” refers to how they eat breakfast, how they socialize, and what they wear. In that case, when Matt says “he was a bad Dom” he may indeed be referring to his whole way of being towards Brad, in which case it is more believable that “being a bad Dom” can tank a relationship.
To me, this is not that much different form having trouble with Judith Ivory’s Black Silk because it has the hero pilloried for porn 40 years after the practice — which never would have been applied to someone as highborn as the hero anyway — was abandoned.
Except …there is one signal difference to me, and it is that m/m is a genre largely written by women who are privileged with regard to their sexuality (it is the numerically dominant, widely accepted, legally protected, morally required, and socially approved sexuality) about men who are marginalized because of theirs. Add BDSM and you get double the marginalization. Personally, and I know others differ, I do think “getting it right” in some basic sense is important. And I think looking out for writing in ways that further shore up stereotypes of an already unequal minority is to be encouraged.
But this is my thing — I am always thinking about the connections between fiction and real life, and always a bit skeptical of the claim (which you are not making) that fantasy, which after all is spun from the exact same mental cloth as everything else we think about, is somehow in this asocial ahistorical and specially protected vacuum, rendering it meaningless and removing it entirely from the causal chain of human thought and action.
#11 by Maili on December 13, 2009 - 12:15 pm
@heidenkind:
If that were the case, maybe Matt’s from a family of cowboys? Because isn’t that what all cowboys do?
*recalling memories of cowboys films where cowboys – including John Wayne – slapped their rears while shouting, “Let’s git them, boys!”*
#12 by Maili on December 13, 2009 - 12:36 pm
@Tumperkin:
Those questions can be applied to authors who choose to include settings, cultures and people they aren’t familiar with in their stories, surely?
I have an ages-old grudge against some authors who used (or rather, misused) Scotland as the setting of their stories. The result of their F.U. gesture at our actual history and culture is quite a few readers nurse a huge number of misconceptions about Scotland and its history.
The idea that the majority of readers recognising the difference between fantasy and reality? Bull. I mean, how many readers have said they learnt history from historical romances? Quite a few. I think some even said it here at this blog not long ago.
IMO, no. It’s actually harder to shake some readers’ belief that what they read is wrong when the writing is good or rather, feel authentic. Especially if the author heavily bragged how much research she did for her book, e.g. Diana Gabaldon when Cross Stitch/Outlander was first released (in fairness, she’s since back-pedalled and admitted she got “some” details wrong).
It’s easy to understand why readers – including me – believe the factual side of a story. We trust authors to take great care with the details or a portrayal of something unfamiliar to us.
So it’s easy to see why some would feel uncomfortable with the idea of authors not taking BDSM seriously. I used to believe BDSM meant nothing but humiliation, torture and pain because of what I read. It’d put me off so much that I wouldn’t touch anything that has an BDSM element for years. Even now, I still feel apprehensive. It took me ages to get myself to watch that film, Secretary.
Sorry about the ramble.
#13 by Sarah Frantz on December 13, 2009 - 12:45 pm
I’m coming to realize that (going to make a sweeping generalization here) most people who write BDSM romance have probably never themselves done anything more than some silk scarves and a bit of spanking which I think most Westerners have done at one time or another as a little Variety or spice in their sex lives. Some of these non-BDSM-identified authors do a lot of fabulous research (Ann Somerville) and/or just manage somehow to get the feel of it just right (Victoria Dahl). But most use it as a way to make their work stand out, to titillate, to punch up the sex factor, or because they think it’s cool. These don’t seem to think they need to research either the physical reality of BDSM or the mental spaces of it.
But for example, Joey Hill’s physical reality is sometimes a little fantastical. But her mental space is perfect and her writing is exquisite. FWIW, she self-identifies as a submissive. Claire Thompson’s physical and mental realities are wonderful, but her writing is…adequate, not brilliant.
As for Bad Brad, which I have not and will not read, it depends on their relationship, on how much the BDSM spilled into vanilla life, on how 24/7 they were. It depended on the personal dynamic of the characters. Cheating could be a sign of something wrong in the BDSM relationship. In another broad sweeping generalization that could get me into heaps of trouble (Yes, I KNOW that it’s not true for everyone!), both gay men–in general–and kinky people–in general–are more accepting of open and/or poly relationships. So a focus on monogamy seems to me to smack of white, middle-class, hetero-centered “values” without an understanding of (or without doing the research into) how being part of a minority culture might change one’s views of what “normal” people see as the “normal,” obvious, unspoken way to be.
Ideally, EVERY writer should do research, no matter how s/he identifies, research driven by the story.
I think what I’m most trying to say with my DA reviews is that kinky sex is not just normal sex with some cool toys, not physically and most especially not mentally. The acutal act AND the mental space are both just different. In addition, the community *values* are as different from white, middle-class, hetero values as WMCH values are from that of the Yanomamo Indians in Brazil.
But what I’m getting from responses to my reviews and from further reading with (an attempt at) more objectivity is that the core audience for BDSM romance (white, middle-class, heterosexual females) doesn’t care about an authentic depiction of a “real” or “true” BDSM relationship (whatever that might mean). What they care about, most of all, is getting their rocks off AND having their own values reinforced while feeling edgy. And I say that with all good-humor and not a little schadenfreude, because I’m doing it too with my own m/m reading. I guess, though, I just want people to admit that that’s what they’re doing. To own it.
Hmm. This was longer than I thought it would be.
#14 by Sarah Frantz on December 13, 2009 - 12:49 pm
@Maili: Oh, God, I hate that film. ::shakes head:: Ironic, huh? Because it’s probably done more to mainstream BDSM than anything. But even thought it positively depicts BDSM, it’s about as accurate as tartans in 1740.
Seriously, if you want well-done, unscary (short) BDSM, you can’t go wrong with Vicky Dahl’s “The Wicked West” and Matthew Haldeman-Time’s “An Affair in Paradise.” Both are fabulous and cute and hot and just a lot of fun. But they both show how…slightly skewed things are in BDSM.
#15 by AQ on December 13, 2009 - 3:46 pm
Sarah said this up above. My question is do gay males view cheating the same way that hetrosexual females tend to?
Getting things wrong or how history is viewed
Whenever this topic comes up I start thinking of the Pilgrams, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Puritans, virginity, historical female power, American middle class life, Salome and the dance of the seven veils, etc.
There’s many things I don’t like but I’m not sure where my line in the sand should be.