2012: Afterthoughts

First published on 1/14/2013

OK, let's get this out of the way: by FAR the biggest thing to happens in the realm of bondage, ebooks, erotic fiction, romance fiction and arguably publishing itself was "Fifty Shades of Grey." I've already written at length on the topic, so I'll keep it brief. The thing that made "Fifty Shades" special wasn't just that it was a book featuring scene of bondage and dominance, but who read it: it was women, mostly, lots and lots of women, and not just young Goth girls looking for something to read while getting a skull tattooed on their butts, but older women: "soccer moms" which is THE prime demographic for many, many advertisers.

The news that soccer moms like to read about women in maledom/femsub relationships did not surprise me at all: I RP in SL Gor, where women outnumber men almost two to one, and all a guy has to do to find a naked slavegirl chained to him is stand still long enough for them to find him. But I think the news that ordinary women like bondage set the mainstream back on its heels, even though the romance genre of which erotic fiction is a subset has always had more than its share of "bodice ripper" stories.

Nothing else that happened in 2012 that I know of had anything LIKE the impact of 50 Shades of Grey on the bondage community/industry/whatevs (though having said that, I am totally prepared to find history proving me wrong).

Another trend I am liking is honest, straightforward blogging by women who are either real life submissives talking about their lives like the author of Down the Rabbit Hole, or sex industry pros like bondage model Cherry Torn and former prostitute The Honest Courtesan, who are talking honestly about THEIR lives and interests instead of just using their blogs as marketing tools.

I think it's great that these voices have found expression online, and I hope they become more popular, and teach everyone that people who are submissives or who work in the sex industry are not mysterious others who can be marginalized and ignored, they're people, just like anybody else. Soccer moms who took the dare their subconscious minds made with them, perhaps.

People call this the "mainstreaming" of BDSM, as if it were merely the inclusion of BDSM topics in mainstream media, but I see it as something more profound, or at the very least, I HOPE it is something more profound, a sort of cultural maturing about matters sexual, a recognition that sexual power fantasies can be acted out in real life, that does not make them any less fantasies, nor justify treating people as the object of such fantasies without their consent.

Now, would somebody please call the prudes and the prudo-feminists and let them know we have this matter all hashed out?

Fifty Shades of India

First published on 12/15/2012

A report in The Times of India announces that the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon is sweeping through country, sparking interest in BDSM in this one billion strong nation. The Times is reporting on the formation of The Kinky Collective a Delhi-based 15-person strong group that provides support for lovers of BDSM.

Wait ... 15 people? India? In India, 15 people is an empty room! Good lord, this is a trend sweeping the nation? Really?

One sense that the author fervently hopes so. If it were, they might have something sexy to report on in a nation that the story admits has a reputation for being very conservative sexually. To wit, it's prudish.

In addition to being prudish, Indian society is sexist and violent. So the search for good news about sex in India that's not completely bad probably gets kinda desperate at times. Here's a good article on all the sexism and violence toward women in India. Most of the violence and sexism appears to be in the rural and poor elements of India, which despite the rise of a detectable middle class in India, still constitutes one hell of a lot of people, the majority of that one billion. Jezebel recently got in on the issue, but Times of India does a much better job of covering it, as you might expect.

In an overwhelmingly violent, sexist culture like the ones many Indians live in, all sexual relationships are going to be profoundly affected by the sexism and violence. I guess if you are wealthy enough and sufficiently privileged, or sufficiently alienated from Indian society (the Kinky Collective was started by a couple, one of whom is transgendered -- hmmm) you might be able to figure your only sane path is to just go your own way, but most women are probably too afraid that men will tie then up and rape them for real to enjoy pretending that a man is tying them up and raping them for consensual kinky fuckery.

I don't know, it's a knotty problem, figuratively speaking. It's tempting to feel cheap moral superiority from the outside, but probably a bad idea, which is why I'm not gonna do it. I suspect that the only reasonable path is to take on the sexism and violence and put an end to it, which is what most reasonable people can agree on. How? Gonna be hard, gonna be a rough slog, as many of the originators of the sexism and violence are illiterate, young, poor and male, a hard group to reach. But most of them have mothers and sisters, and with the same kind of full court press that has been applies in other societies, they'll learn. Sadly, they will almost inevitably learn ... eventually, which will do little good for the women being victimized now.

In the meantime, maybe Fifty Shades of Grey will provide a nice fantasy of kinky, romantic love for those Indians that are at liberty to enjoy it, and perhaps it can preach the subversive message that pretendy sexual submission is all fun and can last throughout a lifetime, while the real thing is nasty, short and brutish.