Yea, I did read a lot of Greek myth when I was a kid. I was one of those children.
Unfinished, but far enough along to post.
24. Perseus
18. Neighbor
15. Books I Have Not Read
Here’s what you should understand when you come asking me for advice on kinky books to read:
I haven’t read it.
Really. Whatever it is, I probably haven’t read more than three pages. Unless it is the Kushiel series or something written by Stephen Elliot. Or a scattered handful of Jay Wiseman books. So if you have been getting the impression that I know something about kinky erotica, consider this the unveiling.
I don’t read kinky books.
There are several reasons for this.
The first is that I didn’t learn about kink by reading instructional books; I learned about kink by going to Conversio Virium, seeing educational presentations, and learning through experience. I’m not knocking this learning style one way or the other. My exposure was simply a twist of advantage and geography.
And I still tend to not learn by reading; I always prefer to learn by watching, doing, fucking up, and trying again.
The second reason is that I am chronically resistant to instructional, self-help, or disseminated psychology books. I suspect this is a hold-over from my upbringing in a do-it-yourself, anti-therapy attitude. So I didn’t read the books that “explain” kink. I have a copy of Bound To Be Free…somewhere. I never got around to reading it. While it might have helped me at some point in my life, right now it simply doesn’t seem relevant.
As you may have noticed, I am perpetually self-analyzing. I usually see reading as a break from self-analysis. Books are my vacation.
The third reason is that I don’t read erotic fiction as literary fiction. So I have not read The Story of O. I have not read Tipping the Velvet. I have not read the Marketplace series. I have not read Venus in Furs. I don’t like to pay for it, I would never carry it around with me, and I’ve seen no compelling evidence, from the few pages of each of these texts that I’ve skimmed through, that I cannot find material just as good or better, for free, online.
I spend my money on kinky photography books. They are prettier to look at and deliver much more long-term satisfaction.
I used to think I owed it to the kinky community and myself to read these books, because they were so obviously an integral part of kink culture. Eventually I decided that this was a bad reason to read books, unless a day came that I was genuinely interested in their historical impact. That interest has not yet surfaced. Perhaps someday it will.
In the end, I prefer literary fiction. I don’t put my energy into long erotic fiction, because it is never, ever as fulfilling as reading good standard fiction. I prefer dense, classic epics; I read a lot of Hugo, Dumas, Austen, Rushdie, Marquez, Allende, Clavell. I went and bought a few new books recently: Eco, Borges, Kundera. And when I want a popcorn book, I reach for the sci-fi: Bradbury, Stephenson, Heinlein, Asimov.
The erotic fiction just doesn’t do it for me. The day someone writes a kinky erotic epic with the scale and scope of The Ground Beneath Her Feet, I will die happy. I simply don’t see that day coming.
So I’ve been asked many, many times for my advice on kinky books. I will keep recommending
Elliot, because I respect his writing and appreciate the balance of erotic/non-erotic narrative in his work. But other than that, I’m at a loss. I’m not the right person to ask.
If you want to talk non-kinky books, I’d love to. Literature is one of the very few fields in which I genuinely identify as a geek.
But lest you think I know the specific reference behind the Story-of-O ring, let me set that record straight. I have absorbed the reference through cultural exposure. I have never read the book.
13. Kink Is Colorful
I’m enjoying throwing art up here, but I recognize that the art’s probably not what you come for. Anyone have thoughts on seeing art on this blog instead of written content?
In other news, I love having a colorful sex life. Although I am running short on blue-haired boys and red-haired girls, sadly.
7. Blonde
4. A Picture Worth 200 Words?
A few weeks ago I curled up in my new leather armchair with a pad of paper, thinking I would work on some illustrations for a project I have on my plate at the moment. Instead, I ended up with this ink sketch. I gave it to May as a present. It is stuck to our wall with Blue-Tack, and I use it to weight my arguments when telling May that he’s pretty. The original is larger, uncropped, and uncolored: I punched in a bit of quick-and-dirty flat color (my old silkscreen style) before posting it here. While admittedly my Photoshop skills are weak, this is a good approximation of our actual skin and hair tones at the moment.
Blogging For LGBT Families Day
This post is inspired by two things.
Thing the first: June 2nd is Blogging for LGBT Families Day, and as I happen to think “family” is an idea we each define on an individual basis, I’d say that raising awareness of the existing alternatives to the culturally traditional family structure qualifies as a good thing.
However, I am fried and ill and sneezing all over my computer screen. I’ve assured myself that this is wildly attractive. It is not, however, conducive to coherent thought.
Hence, thing the second: I wrote in the corner of a ratty black notebook this morning “Do something different and brave today.” Why did I write this? I am not in the habit of giving myself little inspirational notes. But in the spirit of that odd moment, here is something a little brave and a little different; a quick visit to another kind of writing. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. A poem. Feel free to cue instrumental music at your leisure.
This is a piece I’m working on for a chapbook-length collection of poetry on the idea of “Family.”
The Five Year Fix
An Irish girl and a bitter ex-Jewish young man move in together.
The first night their new phone rings,
and over the cracking snap of the bad connection
her brother paints a death threat on the young man’s face.
She’s got a family that doesn’t quit
and doesn’t want him around.
He’s got a great black hollow shaped like a childhood,
and another, smaller blue one shaped like a father.
They start hanging thick cocoon curtains that weekend.
She’s thinking marriage,
but it’s only the first week.
Two years later their electric coffee pot melts down,
And they go out for a late night cup.
She’s won something he was supposed to win,
and he pouts a bit over his dinner.
She gives him those deep Irish dimples and says
“At least it’s come into our family.”
He stops, puts his coffee cup down, and says,
“Oh.”
Breathy, like he’s had his heart vein flicked
by her fingernail.
Three years after that she’s back in school and he’s working.
Every night when his key rattles the door
she braces herself against the tile of the kitchen wall and thinks
Tonight’s the night he’ll leave me.
One Thursday he brings groceries home and kisses her cheek.
He says, “Hello,
Love of my life!
I forgot the smoked salmon, I’m sorry.”
And drops the bags on the floor to clench her tight, startled,
as she gulps, gasps, begins to cry.
She leaves a wet patch on his shoulder.
He strokes her hair softly, whispers he’s sorry, love,
please don’t cry, it’s only fish, we’ll be all right.
The Pen Is The Tongue Of The Mind
I’ve joined FetLife, a curious experience simultaneously stimulating my interest in social dynamics and making me want to stab unwitting stuffed animals with forks. I should begin by saying that despite my intermittent screeching noises, it really is a good site and a sound premise, and hopefully it grows into something of a real community.
The stabbing, you ask? Ah yes. The site is simply a little microcosm of kink, and as such occasionally prompts me to sharpen forks.
The well shot, well proportioned, laughably stereotypical picture on the home page of an older, greying man holding the throat of a young, beautiful, bound woman is thankfully no longer getting under my skin, because Maymay is a computer genius. I asked him to make sure that picture never shows when I load the home page, he fiddled a bit, wrote some code doohicky, and voila. Customized log in, Eileen-annoyance free.
And since changing my orientation from “Dominant” to “Top,” I am no longer identified under a gendered abbreviation. Unless some shockingly clever person manages to push “toppe” through as the new label-du-jour, I suppose.
And I admit, I refused to friend the three young men from New South Wales who each requested foot worship sessions with me.
But these things? They are just my little nitpicks. They are not really problems, per say. Just a friendly confirmation that the quirks of our subculture are alive and kicking. And yet, I am beginning to reconsider my membership. This may be part of a massive shift in my life which has pushed my kink awareness under in favor of work and domesticity.
The thing about a microcosm of kink is that no matter how hard I try, it’s only a matter of time before something crosses my radar that just inflames me. And no, I’m not talking about the big issues here. Oh no, I’m perfectly capable of becoming inflamed over tiny things that people less prone to passionate annoyance will shrug off, or simply fail to notice.
I joined The Kinky Intellectual’s Book Club FetLife group. And as I did so, I made a tiny internal bet with myself. “What do you bet, Eileen, that this group will go three days without mentioning Kushiel’s Dart?”
“I bet nothing. I refuse to throw perfectly good money away.”
Good thing I didn’t bet. But oh, the annoyance.
As I have previously mentioned, I have read Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series. At the time, I was ambivalent toward them. They are not staggering works of literary genius. They are passable fantasy that occasionally wanders into “decent” territory. (Yes, you may dispute this. I have high standards. We know this by now.) I am no longer ambivalent. I feel now, toward these books, an annoyance that momentarily lingers on inflamed irrational rage.
I have had these books recommended to me on a rate of about four times a year for the past six years. I am sick of being told I should read these fucking books, so sick, in fact, that I will now sometimes, in very snippy moods, head off sentences that begin with “Have you ever read…” by interrupting, “Carey? Yes, I have.” They do not deserve this overflow of effusive praise. They are simply not that good.
The Kushiel series, along with a very few other titles that compose the core (and only) BDSM fiction reading list for those of us not inclined to get our wanks from online erotica, operate within a starvation economy that skyrockets their value far beyond anything my tastes will allow. We are so desperate for kinky material that’s been proofread and couched in narrative that we will devour, praise and pimp the passable. And since I’ve written here before about my utterly devastating erotic obsession with artistic skill, one can imagine how this makes me feel.
From here I veer off in two directions, both writerly in nature. Starvation economy of words? Duh. Create more words.
There is the little tickle in the back of my brain, the one that moans of how unfair it is that to find kink content I like I’m best off creating it myself. But that little tickle is the remenant of an indignation that has long since fizzled down; it is, after all, not unfair for me to produce content if I genuinely love producing content.
On the one hand, there is that distinct temptation: “Eileen, how about you write a nice juicy kink/fantasy crossover novel? You’d be rich! Rich, I say!” I’ve gone far enough down this road to have sketched a setting, a plot, some subplots. I’ve done character profiles, even toyed with the first few pages. I have, essentially, a half-decent, passable working novel idea. But I’m still feeling my way through fantasy genre writing, and I don’t know how I feel about writing passable novels.
And then, there is the hand that wants to write the real story down. The story that’s on this blog and all the natty details in between, all blended up in a realist half-fiction that’s more worth the time it would take to write and the time it would take to read. I want to write kink and love the way Stephen Elliot writes kink and love. I want to squash Mistress Nan off the market and completely redefine the “real experiences of a dominant woman” in all their intricate, clumsy, laughable, joyful ache and glory.
A telling insight on my ego: I desire to possess skill and desire to possess the skilled. I keep falling flat on my face for artists and writers, the body as a metaphor for the intellect, the intellect as a metaphor for the body. Or, to put it bluntly: the better I craft, the hotter I get. The better you craft, the hotter you get.




