Book Review: Wild Licks by Cecilia Tan

Since I reviewed my publisher's last book in her "The Secrets of a Rock Star" series it seemed appropriate to look at book two in that series as well. Wild Licks (Secrets of a Rock Star) follows two characters we met in "Taking the Lead" -- Gwen Hamilton, the sister of Ricki, and Mal Kennealy, the guitarist for The Rough, the rock band at the center of the series. Yes, we do get a bit more of Ricki and Axel but they are minor yet important characters in this novel. And I do use the word novel on purpose because this isn't soft porn, this isn't an one-handed masterbation toy.  This is a fully developed story with a lot of very intense sex. It also can be read without reading book one in the series though I think you'll get more from it if you have read the first book.

The Hamilton sisters are from a powerful Hollywood family, the type of power that is behind the scenes not in front of the camera most of the time. While I liked Ricki okay in the first book, Gwen is much more what I want a sexy, female character to be. Sure there are moments of self reflection and doubt, but right from the start it seems clear that Gwen has a greater understanding of what turns her on and acceptance of the full range of her desires. In a break with her family's traditional power, Gwen wants to become an actress but based on her talent (or lack thereof) not her family name. Using her acting skills and her access to costumes and makeup, she easily plays roles in the joint fantasies that Mal and her create. These fantasies are both sexually and emotionally described making this a not-safe-for-work read. Gwen stands up for herself when things fall apart as they always do in the romance genre. Ricki didn't cry over her man either but Gwen seemed more self-reliant to me, able to adapt and make changes with less displayed sorrow. However, Gwen isn't perfect. She misrepresents herself the first time she meets Mal and continues to do so even after she starts "dating" him as a publicity stunt. Lying, deceiving, those are not qualities of a good submissive or masochist, let alone of a good partner. However, we can sort of understand why she does it and continues to do it. Fulfilling fantasies can be intoxicating and unfortunately can also lead to misjudgements and miscommunications.

On the other hand, I'm not as big of a fan of Mal as I was of Axel. As lead singer of The Rough, Axel always had a public persona to think of but his time with Ricki seemed to free him in very positive ways, ways that frightened him at times but he was always relatable. Mal just seems angry and cold, I'm not sure I'd trust a submissive or masochistic friend or relative of mine with him. If Gwen had asked me, I'd have told her to run not walk away from that mess. Mal seems to just go with his desires and fantasies first and foremost without thinking every possibility through which leads to some danger. Then he beats himself up, talks himself down, and labels what he wants and desires in the most negative terms. That can only lead to problems which Cecilia Tan knows full well. She shows this repeatedly but most shockingly when Mal refuse to take Gwen and himself to a hospital as he should. Mal isn't a good top in my book but, sadly, it is a reflection of much of what can happen in kink or vanilla sex when you don't slow down and think a bit. I did feel some sympathy for Mal because we learn more about his previous serious kinky relationship. I had a partner who pushed me too far and wouldn't accept my limits as the dominant/top but that pales in comparison to what Mal went through. However, I didn't torture myself by saying "never again" and locking my heart up, I didn't refuse to provide aftercare for my partners, and I sure as heck didn't accept any damn description of myself as a monster. My sympathy ended for Mal when he repeatedly refuses to see himself for a messed up man in need of help and continued to cling to his monster identity.

From book one, the kinky sex scenes are intense and they are not for the weak hearted nor are they models you should follow unless you've had some real-life mentoring and experience. If you know a bit about BDSM, then you'll understand when I say that this novel has a ton of edge play in it and if you are not comfortable reading that sort of thing, this book will be a challenge for you. If you don't know much about edge play, let me clarify and say there is intense roleplaying that lasts days and nights, knives, odd object insertions, and fire. The intensity isn't only in the sex scenes. Mal is messed up from his childhood, his past relationships, and he admits he is trying to be emotionally distant. He says, thinks, and does a few things that made me want to put him over my knee and beat his ass and not in a consensual way.

I know that in romances there is this duty for the woman to help the man come to terms with his emotions but in "Taking the Lead" I didn't feel that was the case. While there was some miscommunications and misunderstandings, I never felt like Axel was emotionally stunted. Mal is not only emotionally stunted but frankly a crap communicator who hides behind the title "sadist" instead of accepting responsibility as a top. He is also self loathing and that was a big turn off to me. Frankly I think Mal needs therapy and a lot of it.

I don't know if this is a problem with word counts and publisher but the story jumps suddenly from Gwen and Mal realizing they will continue to be drawn to each other to everything being great. No mention of therapy, no mention of continued struggles that would be happening, just BOOM things are great. For Ricki and Axel I could believe that, they didn't have any major emotional traumas but that isn't true for Mal and by extension it won't be true for Gwen. Even a couple of sentences in the epilogue acknowledging the weight of the struggle that couple will face would have made a world of difference to the story and not spoiled the happy ending all these romances demand.

If you read "Taking the Lead" and loved it, you'll want to get the second book in the series, too. If you follow this link you'll be able to do that. If you like, please a review of it because as an author myself, I can tell you that doing so, means a great deal to the author and to the publisher. If you want quality romance, quality kink, then you need to show us that you want by buying and speaking out about it

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Book Review: Counsel of the Wicked by Elizabeth A. Schechter

One of the "professions" I've had for many years now is as a book reviewer -- much like many of my "professions" it would be nice if it paid but at least I get free books and a chance to express my opinions. As you may have figured out, all of us butt-kicking women love to share our opinions about anything that pushes our buttons, lightens our lives, or simply stirs our imaginations. When I enjoy a book, having read it and sharing it with others means a great deal; when a book is a struggle, that's when I want to be paid for it. Book One of the new Elizabeth A. Schechter series, Rebel Mage, is a pleasure to bring to your attention. Book 1 is entitled Counsel of the Wicked but don't let the cover fool you; while that is our main character, whether or not he is "wicked" is one of the subjects of the book and I suspect the entire series.

Warning: While I am trying not to spoil the book, the rest of this post may contain information some readers would prefer to discover on their own. To make a more in depth and serious review, I need to touch upon these matters. Do not continue reading of you dislike any type of spoiler.

As you hopefully recall from my interview with Schechter, defining her books is difficult yet Fantastic Fiction Publishing labels this Bisexual Romance and Fantasy on the back cover. It is certainly a fantasy book. This appears to be set post devastating world-wide collapse of civilization; on Earth or another planet is unclear. There is some technology but it is hoarded by Elders in charge of specific towns. At first we think that these towns are all that is safe in the world because it is all our main character, Matthias, has ever known. Except that isn't quite true; he doesn't live in the town, he lives outside of it because his mother, a rape survivor, is condemned by their town for having a child out of wedlock. Sounds like the neo-con religious fanatics have taken over, huh? The "new" powers in charge have counseled the world in a very wicked fashion.

Matthias is undoubtedly our main character, about half the book is spent looking at his experiences as an outcast, his abuse at "The School" the High Elder sends him to, and his life on the run after he is rescued from that nightmarish place. Schechter gets us into his mind and his heart from chapter one and so we can feel great empathy with him even if he has a very limited world view and knowledge. Is he bisexual? He seems more uninterested in sex except to please his partners. He survives sexual assaults in "The School" and yet it felt like he worked through that fairly quickly once he and the rebel group that rescues him were on the run. As a survivor, I could read this two ways -- an attempt to keep the protections of the group by using sex to appease them or forcing himself to reject the abuse and go back to his normal sexual activities. Matthias seems to have no sexual interests and he doesn't seem driven to keep his rescuers happy. He is selective about whom he shares his body with and this demonstrates that no matter his situation, he has maintained his personal power. He can do this because he has been alone and needed to care for himself, having more than one friend, needing help to the degree he does at "The School" those are new experiences for him. I would expect some emotional fallout eventually from everything that has happened to him once the rebel group gets a few days to recover and calm down.

Before "The School" Matthias' only friend was Balthazar, the son of the town's Elder who also happens to be the High Elder on the Council of Elder.  Note the clever word play that Schechter has used here -- "counsel" and "council." But are these true wicked people in this story? There are hints that they are not. Balthazar is naïve because he has had a sheltered life of privilege. Oddly, Matthias attempts to let his friend know what his life has been life seem very recent. Of course, Balthazar wants to be more than friends and his pressuring of Matthias for more left a distaste in my mouth but also foreshadow some truly horrific events later in the book. Balthazar is definitely bisexual; we see him having sex with one woman who is a leader among the rebels who have survived outside the Council controlled towns. Unlike with Matthias, I couldn't manage to feel empathy for Balthazar at any point in the story. When the novel switched to following him around, I just wanted us to get back to Matthias. That's sad because a lot of good world building was revealed through Balthazar's own adventures.

It is primarily after Balthazar leaves the Council towns that we see hints of what has happened to create this dystopian world. Information through the eyes of the High Elder, the other "students" at "The School," and the rebels they encounter suggest this is not Earth but another world which has survived a great war only to be thrown into pockets of civilization. Just how far the authority and influence of the Council of Elder goes is yet to be revealed. Matthias himself has newly discovered talents that are only being nursed by otherworldly allies.



Schechter tackles a lot of difficult subjects in this 290 page paperback. I've mentioned the destruction of civilization, the rule of the corrupt, and even sexual assaults, but there are other topics as well. Religion is the cover for much of the corruption in this book but these are not Earth religion so get into a tizzy about it. Gender roles and control over the female body are also addressed though given that our main character is male with male love interests it may seem larger to me because I am a woman. There is no clean authority in this book when it comes to women; both the Council of Elders and the rebels who are led by women have no problem dictating what women should do in terms of their careers and reproductive lives. I'm curious to see if Matthias will care about this in future books and I hope that he does or his status as "hero" will be lessened in my eyes. All of these subjects are dealt with in a matter-of-fact fashion that is also sensitive just not in a "I'm teaching you a lesson" way that can detract from the story and character development.

There explicit sex in the book though I've seem far more explicit... heck, I've written it! In general the sex flows naturally from the storylines and character development though the scenes between Matthias and Solomon (one of the "students") once they are on the run felt a bit forced; do you really make time for sex when the baddies are on your heels? Maybe folks do this but I can't imagine it myself. That doesn't make this story bad, it just follows in the expected flow of sex in most popular books. If you can't handle explicit sex or complex social ideas and violence, don't buy this book! It is as simple as that.

Council of the Wicked is a good setup for at least one more book, possibly more.

Has Consent Been Erased?

This article on TruthOut by Jill D. Weinberg got me thinking about consent, vanilla sex, BDSM, and the portrayals each "side" creates of each other.  The article looks at the entire "Fifty Shade" brand in regards to how it might be harmful to folks who are starting to engage in S&M (and it's associated forms of sexuality or sexual play) and those who have been doing it for some time. While I think the article makes some good points it leaves out an honest look at the history of and the current culture of BDSM so I want to address that as someone who has been doing all of this for over 24 years now and who has done some research into the history of the Scene and a lot of talking/reading about the changes to the Scene over these two and a half decades.

"Fifty Shades" may be more honest about how some kinky relationships work than we want to believe.



While I have no doubt that Weinberg's subjects (52 of them according to the post) told her that consent was really important, very common, and taken very seriously, I've seen many online discussions and even live debates about the need (or not) for safewords and contracts growing over the past decade.  The correct answer you are "supposed" to give to any researcher is that these (safewords, contracts, negotiation) are important because you don't want to show the community or yourself in a poor light.  This correct not only because "we" want to prove we aren't crazies or serial killers but because the idea that we are better than vanillas is touted in every Scene community I've been part of or visited.  Vanilla (folks who don't identify as part of BDSM/SM/Kink) aren't as self-aware, they don't discuss things, they don't think things through, they just fly on instinct and tradition or so we tell ourselves repeatedly.

Abuse happens in the Scene, it happens every day.  Even though I applaud the NCSF's attempt to research issues of abuse I have my worries about how honest people will be even in a blind study. Their previous study on the value of consent vs. the reality can be found here.  The NCSF discovered rate of consent violations in that study isn't the 2 out of 52 that Weinberg reports but over 30%!

It simply isn't true that most people use contracts any more.  That I do makes me an oddity and even then my current contact is not ideal in any sense of the word but it is the outgrowth of doing all of this for years and years with one partner; we are not role-models for new relationships. I have my doubts that the majority ever did use contracts even though the value of them was promoted back in the early to mid-1990s when I was starting into the public community. Repeated today we are told how unlegal our contracts are, that they are more a matter of mutual honor or a why to lay things out so you both know what you are getting into.  Well, duh!  I was never told our contracts were legal documents and these discussions often have the tone of warning about them -- don't be fooled into thinking you can't leave just because you have a contract, little girl.

At the other edge of the contract discussion though are those who report on ways they have legally found to tie their partner to them.  Doing these things (and we aren't talking legal marriage, folks) is said to make things more "real" and take away the slave's right to just walk away.  I have my doubts about such advice since most of the documents being discussed would require the submissive to be proven to be mentally unable to make decisions... in that case how are they making the decision to be in the relationship in the first place?

If you pay attention to these discussions going around the Scene today it feels like consent and safewords are what "real" masters/slaves don't need or are only for the newbies.  Sure we tell the younguns that they need a safeword, maybe even a safecall though I've found that less and less discussed, but they are also told not to use it "control the scene."  This idea confuses safewords as being all the same and that wasn't what I taught many years back.  Safewords are ways to give information but the anti-safeword folks often say "just communicate" ignoring the fact that some folks want to say things in Scene that would communicate that things should stop even if that isn't what they want.  The Scene can be linguistically complicated, safewords were an idea to address those complications.  Safewords then become tools for the newest members or for those too unskilled in communication.

Then there are the safewords are for fake folks.  This idea can primarily be found on master-slave boards online.  Here people brag about how they don't have safewords or that having one would make them unreal.  I totally get bragging about how little your partner may need to use a safeword after years together as a sign of how well you've gotten to know each other but bragging that not having any way to communicate beyond the linguistic complications makes you more real seems odd to me.  Of course these folks also tend to preach that real slaves can't leave, can't make choices, and furthermore never want to do so.  I agree with the Weinberg article that I mentioned first in this essay -- having a slave stay because he choses to is far more sexy than having one who feels they have no choice. But there are folks in BDSM who strongly disagree.

So if folks in the community are currently disagreeing about the need or value of safewords, contracts, and even ongoing consent do they at least agree that rape and assault can happen and should be avoided?

I have seen many discussions online, in organizations, and at events about the rate of sexual assault (and whether or not it is real, an insult to say the least to those who have been assaulted) in the Scene and the responsibility of the community to do anything about it other than educate and provide resources for "victims."  People who speak up about violations of their limits or flat out assaults and rapes are often warned by those in charge to stop and sometimes they are kicked off of online and meatlife communities.  As a "community" I have seen far more accused believed than accusers even when the accuser have bruises, hospital records, and evidence of threats to back up their claims.  The standard lines I've read and heard from those poo pooing the claims -- you just weren't a good enough slave, you could have walked away any time, and even that you want to get revenge on your ex.

Wow!  Those seem very similar to charges that survivors of domestic abuse heard and continue to hear, doesn't it?  Apparently the talk of consent, safewords, and contracts isn't taken seriously when we are smacked in the head by a complaint.  It is easier to fall back onto the ideal of what the Scene is like than to realistically look at the folks we munch with, chat with, and play with.

I've never seen or heard anyone claim that an unpartnered dom or sub should give up safewords or not have their consent respected.  But once you starting using those magic words owner and slave (and the variations of them) suddenly folks come out to say you aren't real if you need safewords, or that they have "moved beyond" the need for safewords or contracts, or that it lessens their dynamic if those are involved.  We talk about these things in brief in our book if you want to check it out:



I see this far more often in the maledom/femsub community than in the femdom/malesub.  Is this a carry over of the idea that men need to be in charge and that women just "naturally" submit to them especially in the bedroom?  If you have tell someone to submit, if you have to show her how to do that, if you have to keep driving home the fact that her uterus makes her less, then it isn't natural.  There are naturally submissive folks out there, there are people who love to serve others, but that's not a gender thing, it's an individual thing.  I can't say how frequent this idea of "no safeword = more real" is in the lesbian or gay communities really but I'd be surprised if these same discussions about the unnecessary safewords and contracts for real owner-slave households aren't going on.

One problem unlining this is the idea that some peoples' relationship are more "real" than others. This might be a type of competitiveness or a way to bolster your own feelings by making yourself seem more important compared to others.  It may also be a romantic view of the past before the advent of the Internet and the popularization of kink into the mainstream -- complaints I hear even more often than arguments about safewords and consent.

If you want to see the past of BDSM then you need to look at the honest histories of the "Old Guard" but also some of the underground clubs and circles that existed prior to the late 1980s when it all started to become more "public". Hopefully next year there will be a history book out about several of these things but for now, for anyone believing in an "golden age of kink" before the Internet debased it all, I recommend you read V.M. Johnson's "To Love, To Obey, To Serve: Diary of an Old Guard Slave" that the tops club I used to run read and discussed soon after it came out.  Not a single person in that club wanted to go back to those "good old days" even though they would have been in the more powerful positions.



That these discussions about consent, the responsibility of the community to police itself, and the "realness" of relationships points out several things about the Scene today.  We are an expanding community and as such the variety of opinions will be greater.  We will also attract people who have no interest in BDSM at all and merely see our meeting spaces as arena in which to hunt for new victims.  One of the most common traits of serial rapists and abusers is their ability to hide very well in mainstream society; in kink communities these people can recite the words, play in public, even take on leadership positions then abuse their "slaves" in private.  Our community is primarily online now ranging from folks who never meet offline to those organizations that have been around for 40+ years using the Internet to communicate.  The Internet allows us to lie, it encourages us to lie, so the self-proclaimed great master can get a following much later than the leather daddy who was a founder member of a Old Guard club.

Lies are the foundation of abuse. Lies strip people's ability to get information they need to give consent or withdraw it.  It is so easy for someone to lie about themselves at any time.  I learned to not tell my potential partners my own limits and interests during initial negotiations after repeated discoveries that things my partners claimed they were into were things they either just tolerated or actually hated.  On occasion that could have been intentional lies but often it was merely adapting their answers to reflect mine because they wanted so badly to get into the Scene or try it out with me.  As a result for many years now I haven't told potentials my limits or preferences in formal negotiations until after we've documented theirs.  (I'm a freak about negotiating as fully informed as possible.)  Regardless of why they lied, the lies damaged any foundation we might have built upon.  Abusers constantly lie to trick their victims and those around them so they can continue their abuse.

I think we can educate all we want but until we tackle the "need" to lie, the need to be in "real" relationship, and even the idea that you must be in a relationship to be kinky we will continue to struggle with abuse in BDSM.  Until we as a greater society deal with our constructed ideals of gender and sex and accept the naturalness of individualism then books like "Fifty Shades" will resonate with some people and reflect the reality of some people's lives.  It isn't erasing consent, it's pointing out the serious problems we have with consent right here, right now.

So those are my thoughts on the reality of kink and consent.  What's your experience?

Where are the Boy-Whores in Vegas?

At the beginning of the month I was in Las Vegas with my partner for a full seven days and I thought you might all like to hear about it.  I'll get to the title of my post later on but for now sit back and enjoy my story, please.  I kept a diary while we traveled but I'll try to keep it to the highlights for you all.

Day one, a Wednesday, and we did so much even on our first day but primarily we picked up as many of the show tickets that we bought so that we could relax (HA!) the other days.  That was the first day that we saw them - the "Girls! Girls! Girls" folks handing out little cards advertising their "escort" services. Technically prostitution is illegal in Clark County where Las Vegas is located along with a few other counties and cities; in the rest of Nevada brothels are legal and regulated.  We had a feeling these "cards" were a clever and ignored way around the law.  They were being handed out by both men and women, mostly Hispanic it looked like, and they rarely said much other than "Girls?" and offered you the cards.

We saw several shows while in Vegas.  "Tournament of Kings" at Excalibur Resort was dinner and a show.  We were in the Russian section front row and had cool neighbors.  We all agreed that our "king" was a bit evil as he continually cheated but at least he was pretty to look at.

"Jan Rouven" was an illusion/erotic dance show at the Riviera on the northern end of the Strip that was our second evening's highlight, that was a Thursday by the way. Rouven interacted well with his audience that was fairly small though the seating needs to be improved so the seats are angled upward so you can see. A couple of people in a nearby section were stacking chairs on top of each other and this really interfered with a family's enjoyment of it I think as was very rude and unsafe.  It was a lot of fun and in hindsight worth VIP seating I think especially on a more crowded spring/summer/fall weekend night.

Once more the "Girls! Girls! Girls" folks were out and about along with more scam artists, homeless, and performance artists some of which are really good.

Friday night we had VIP seating for the SinCity Comedy and Burlesque show at Planet Hollywood.  The two main comedians we saw were funny and the two burlesque dancers were great -- my partner had a pink boa tossed at him but he was too shy to hand it back to her, just left it on the stage at the end for her to find.

We got there over an hour early (we've been told repeatedly by staff when we picked up the tickets and well as the ticket outlet we bought them from to get their really early.  We showed our tickets and were accidentally taken into an earlier show called The Coop Show that was super fun and funny even more so than the one we bought tickets for. Coop was very talented both as a singer and an impersonator.  We highly recommend you check out his show but neither this nor the SinCity show really require VIP seating so learn from us.

Again the "Girls! Girls! Girls" folks were out and about along with even more scam artists, homeless, and performance artists.  By this night the crowds were starting to build up.  We discovered we were in town at the same time as the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo so that was why a lot of the resorts and stops along the middle of the Strip were being "westernized" in decoration and signage. I hope those folks had a great time but it was a bit trippy to see all the hats and boots.  But then again it was also 10-20 degrees below normal our entire stay... SIGH!

Saturday there were winter storm advisories for Las Vegas (didn't work out) so we decided to sort of take it easy and stay inside to see what was in the Mandalay Bay-Luxor-Excalibur resorts since they are all connected via internal walkways and shopping areas.  We went to the Excalibur Buffet that was above average for our regular hometown buffets then their Fun Dungeon (use your imaginations, I know you have one).  Back at Luxor we did the Titanic Experience (I survived, my partner didn't) that was educational and fun at the same time, two hours were gone like that (snap fingers).

Same for the Shark Reef Exhibit over at Mandalay Bay though one of the exhibit guides was hyper political and talkative and I had to pull my partner away.  There he is, my 14 year partner with his face partly hidden for privacy's sake, checking out fish and sharks both at the glass walkway under a bit part of the exhibit.  The little kids and adults there were so funny, hardly anyone bothered to read the signage and just made up stuff about what they were looking at.

No "Girls! Girls! Girls!" folks inside!  HURRAY because they were starting to annoying -- where were the "Boys! Boys! Boys!" cards?  Are brothels only legal if they have female prostitutes in Nevada? Nope, back at the end of 2009 the laws were changed to require examines of male prostitutes so they are legal. Where was the pushing of them?  If we were going to hire an "escort" it would be male after all... not that we were planning to do so but it is the fairness at all that was annoying me.

Sunday night we had to go off Strip to see the Penn & Teller Show at the Rio.  I liked it but frankly their repeated political comments lessened my enjoyment a great deal.  Do your political stuff once and move on, it wasn't advertised "with political commentary" so I wasn't prepared and ended up annoyed at certain points. I was expecting edgy and snarking performances with jabs at society or other shows but political stuff only takes a bit to annoy me. My partner enjoyed it more because he was more familiar with their work.

Damnit!  Those "Girls! Girls! Girls!" folks had been out there too!  We saw their discarded cards around but not them because we took a taxi back to the hotel room.

Monday we saw the B-Beatles Show at the Saxe Theater back at Planet Hollywood -- given how often we went there it might have been a better place for us to stay.  It was Awesome!  It was the best show and event we did our entire stay and only a small part of that was the fact that we were 4th row center stage for it!  On these early week day shows don't bother with a VIP pass just get there in line early and you may get amazing seats.  They allowed you to take photos during the show but most of my mind were too bright from the lights it turned out.  Here's one of them taking a bow at the end, the entire cast of the show in fact.

As soon as we left the resort the "Girls! Girls! Girls!" folks were everywhere. Two of them at every corner and often mid-block.  I turned to my partner "I'm think the next one that approaches I'm going to ask if they have boy-whores. Would you be OK with that?" He not only was OK but encouraged me so the next one, a woman, who offered us a card I stopped. I looked at her very seriously and asked "Do you have any boy-whores?" but she just stopped short, opened her mouth, shut her mouth, shook her head, and stepped back.

The "Girls! Girls! Girls!" folks stopped approaching us after that... hhhmmm though we had a good couple of blocks to go.  My partner also started speaking in German to the scammers and hawkers on the street -- real German, he has years of it, and we both have German ancestry and we just didn't want to be bothered on our second to last night.

There you go, a bit of our trip for your education and amusement.  What do you think?  Should there be "Boys! Boys! Boys!" cards handed out on the Strip, too?

Do bras prevent sagging? And who cares?

Cerise writes:  Continuing my theme from last week:  you should be free to go without a bra, even if you have very large breasts.  (Like my 46DD’s.)

Oh, God, aren’t you uncomfortable you might ask?  Only when I feel obligated to wear a bra.  My breasts are happy breathing, jiggling, and just hanging out, thankyouverymuch.  It doesn’t hurt when they bounce, I promise.  When I have to wear a bra, they are not happy, and neither am I.

            Oh, I have tried all sorts of bras, fitted by professionals at all different sorts of stores.  I have spent over $100 on a bra.  I have tried altering bras to make them fit better.  Even if they fit perfectly, I still find them terribly uncomfortable.  Maybe because I have something called fibromyalgia, which causes me pain in my sternum, ribs, and shoulders.  Yeah, pretty much all the places that a bra presses on my body.  I used to attend a fibromyalgia support group and every single woman there said “Oh, my God, wearing a bra is so painful!”  (Uh, why do we do it, then?)  But even if I didn’t have this condition, I don’t think I should feel obligated to wear a bra. 

What if my breasts get droopy?  This is the question my mom asks, and it makes her crazy that I go out of the house without a bra.  So what?  She claims I will soon be able to tuck my tits into my belt, and then I won’t have to worry about a bra.  Well, then, our disagreement will be resolved, won’t it?  Actually, I am not terribly concerned about the threat of sagginess.  If they sag so much that it bothers me, I will then decide if I am willing to hoist them up with a painful bra.  Or I will just live with it. 

In fact, dear reader, bra salespeople may be scamming you.  Bras may not, in fact, keep your breasts from drooping.  They may even make it worse.  Gasp!  No, really.  To summarize the study, there seems to be more sagging in the bra-ed breasts than in the braless ones.  The theory put forward to explain the lack of sagginess in braless women is that their muscles adapt to supporting their breasts and the muscles of bra-ed women atrophy from lack of use.  If this sounds crazy, talk to someone who was a nurse in the 1950’s.  (Like my Grandmother.)  Women back then wore serious girdles all the time.  Some even slept in them.  When they went into the hospital for surgery or childbirth, they often had terrible back pain because, for the first time in years, they weren’t wearing their girdles.  Their back muscles had atrophied from lack of practice at supporting their own torsos!  It seems possible to me that the same thing could happen to chest muscles.  Use it or lose it, baby!  Okay, I admit this study only included French women and only went up to age 35.  Maybe my bralessness will come back to bite me when I am 80.  (But will I care?)

Believe it or not, not all cultures expect middle-aged women to have tits like a Barbie doll.  Why should we want to have teenager breasts when we are well beyond being a teenager?  Isn’t there something a bit odd about an 80 year old woman whose breasts are the same shape on top as on bottom, with no hint of drooping whatsoever?  I suppose that having perkier boobs makes you look younger.  But at some point, wouldn’t it just make you look ridiculous?  Sort of like a 75 year old woman in a neon mini-dress?  Who says that a mature woman with children should want to look like a skinny fifteen year old, instead of like the beautiful, experienced woman she is? 

Not all cultures admire perky, youthful breasts.  Some prefer a certain softness, even sagginess, because it shows maturity and implies a level of sexual experience that is seen as very, very sexy.  Surely you have seen the pictures of bare-breasted women in National Geographic?  There they are, braless and topless, totally unconcerned.  The men are not turning into ravening beasts, raping and humping like mad, by the sight of the breasts.  Nor do they seem disturbed or disgusted by the older or sagging breasts.  And the women are not embarrassed by their breasts, whether they are perky or saggy.  The breasts are just there.  Sort of like noses.  Just sticking out.  And it is no big deal. 

If anything, hiking your breasts up with a bra makes them stick out more.  It draws attention to them, makes them more obvious.  If that’s what you want, go for it.  But don’t try to tell me that a bra is more modest than no bra.  Bra wearing is a cultural construct that bra sellers have somehow made mainstream.  It is not a universal perception that bras hide your breasts and make them less conspicuous.  In her lovely cookbook/memoire, Bitter Almonds, Maria Grammatico recounts that the convent school girls were not allowed to wear bras because the nuns thought it was shameless to make your breasts stick out unnaturally, as a bra would certainly do.  I observed a similar attitude toward bras being unnatural and flashy when I was growing up in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where the Native American population is around 30%.  My point is that bras are not inherently more modest than bralessness, it is merely our culture (with the help of underwear advertisements) that has decided it is so. 

           

            Oh, dear.  I had planned to discuss breast feeding in public today.  But it seems I have ranted on long enough.  Okay, breast feeding will have to wait for another day.  If you have any stories or comments on public nursing, feel free to leave them here and I will look a them before I write my next post. 

Other sources claiming that bras do not prevent sagging breasts:

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/sports-bras

Three studies, summarized in English, with citations: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=15913.0

Are Women Our Worst Enemies? Essay #1

Earlier this week one of my co-authors spoke up about enabling violence and sexism and I want to continue that theme by starting a series of posts.  In my life as a female human being, my decades as a feminist, and my decade plus worth of teaching and sexuality activism, I have often felt that men are not the biggest problem I face but that other women just might be.  Oh, I'm a firm believer that patriarchy is a huge problem even if it is very way to organize societies across time around the plant but is it promoted mainly by men for men?  This is something I've thought about and researched well before I was even in college because of things in my own family and hometown life.  This is a topic I imagine I will return to repeatedly thus the "Essay #1" in the title.  This particular tackling of the topic was prompted by this blog post from Arden Leigh on how she was treated by other female authors simply because she doesn't believe either in their "Rules" or necessarily monogamy.



What really struck me in Leigh's post is that it was other women who attacked her and tried to make her feel bad about her views and experiences.  In her post she points out that the men in the discussion she is talking about either said nothing or very little and then were not attacking her while these two other women aggressively and repeatedly went after her.  Leigh calls this "slut-shaming" but I want to point out that this may not be the best term to use in this case.

Yes, the authors of "The Rules" who were attacking her were attacking her sexuality and were trying to equate her to a "slut" however I see evidence in Leigh's post that they made her feel bad about her sexuality or made her think of herself as a "slut" -- thus the attack was unsuccessful so she wasn't "slut-shamed" so much as annoyed a great deal.  When we use terms like "slut-shaming" I feel we imply that the person attacked is made to feel ashamed when really what we mean is that the attacker wanted them to feel ashamed.  Subtle difference, I know, but an important difference I believe.  I live my life by the following mantra "Do not do things you would be ashamed of doing" and it has served me well for many, many years; I'll talk more about this later as well.



What then caused these two authors to attack?  Was it an attempt to promote their book?  Have they read their own book?  Aren't they being too aggressive as women, shouldn't they just let the men around them be the active ones while they use passive aggressive behavior and suggestions?

Or maybe they feel ashamed themselves?  Ashamed of what?  Of the fact that they've made sexuality choices they are unhappy with but didn't realize they had options?  Did they start to feel ashamed after they started the attack and then just kept going to cover their feelings?

Or perhaps it isn't feeling ashamed but feeling jealous?  Jealous of what?  That another woman was asked to this discussion?  That she is younger?  Perhaps they feel she's sells more books or might? Or are they jealous that this other woman is able to reject the stereotypical sexuality of women and be happy?

Some of these reasons are generic and reflect an idea that there is limited wealth and limited attention in the world.  Others are more gender role specific reflecting that women must compete with other women for... everything... but that they shouldn't compete with men.  That's an idea I'll get back to at a later date.

In the end Arden Leigh's experience touched me as an author and a woman who finds that other women tend to be roadblocks to my life more often than men at least on a non-governmental or institutional level.  Government and institutional sexism and violence is overwhelming promoted by some men and a few women but I'll discuss the dynamic of oppression at a later date and repeatedly I'm sure.

Women will continue to struggle internally and with the world around us as long as we continue to attack other women for thinking or acting in ways that we don't personally agree with. We do not help ourselves or each other when we do this but instead allow continued institutional biases that harm the entire world by breaking us apart into categories that compete without regard for what is best for the human species or for the planet.  The day that women stop attacking each other and start supporting each other is the day the world will actually start to heal and begin that journey down the road to whatever our true potential is as human beings not as a sex or a gender or a race or a religion or an economic group.

You want to help get to that full potential day?  Start speaking up when you see women belittle each other whether you are women or men.  Do not be afraid to stand up because if I do it, and you do, then your sister will start doing it, your friends will start doing it, then your neighbors, then your city, then your nation, then the world.

See you next Friday and go have a piece of good chocolate this weekend!

Another Author Reflects on: Fifty Shades & Lean In

As an author I am always asking myself what my responsibility to my audience is.  Recently two literary phenomena -- the Lean In proposal and the success of the Fifty Shades trilogy -- caught my attention in Vanessa Garcia's article in the online news and blog website called the Huffington Post.  In several ways I was in agreement with Garcia, and yet something really annoyed about her essay, almost as annoyed as I was with the four books, their popularity, and the discussions of these books I see at least weekly.  Let me see if I can get that out there for you all to think about and respond to, please.

General criticisms of E.L. James's trilogy look at the story’s poorly edited and weakly constructed nature, a fanfiction that became popular enough to justify tweeting and publication by Vintage Books.  Who is to blame for the less-than-sterling prose and predictable, often frustrating plot?  At the foundation the author is claiming responsibility because she "created" the story; however, if readers had not flocked to the story online, she might not have continued it and very likely would not have re-crafted it for mainstream publication.  However, as an author I can tell you that the errors that plague these books fall very heavily onto the shoulders of the editors and proofreaders at Vintage Books, too.  An author can get easily lost in her own creation, so having a second, third, even fourth pair of eyes and an engaged mind is very important for us: that is a role that agents and editors should be playing.

Further complaints about the trilogy look at the relationship between the two main characters. These complaints come from a range of people: feminists angry at the submissive model of Anastasia; anti-sex folks annoyed at what they call vulgar passages; kinky folks both thrilled and terrified that it will attract others to BDSM.  If you are a kinky person and have these worries, Peter Tupper's book to the left (the icon on the left) may help you understand what is going on in this series.  The Fifty Shades trilogy has been called anything from "romantic," to "eye-opening," to "trash," and even "dangerous" for the readers. However, these fears and praises seem to buy into a few stereotypes that are simply not correct though a recent study suggests that the relationships shown in the book are undoubtedly abusive.

First, there is this very odd but very common belief that if you read a book and enjoy it, that must mean you will try to behave and think exactly like the characters in the book. The same concern exists for the Lean In book from Sheryl Sandberg, if you look at some of the criticisms her non-fiction book has received. Several critics have suggested that if women follow her advice it will set women as a group back by decades in the workforce.

Let's be honest: Authors have no magical power to control their readers.  Hell, if we did, we wouldn't be making only 5-10% royalties, and we wouldn't have to work our tails off marketing our own books. Not to mention the fact that our world would be incredibly unstable as the new book of the week shifted all of its readers' behaviors and attitudes. The reality is that just because you read a book, it does not mean it will change your life. As an author I can say that I hope what I write gets my reader to think, but given some of the emails I've gotten over the years I have to say that what someone gets out of my work may have very little to do with what I had in mind or the actual words I used. Sometimes my readers' reactions are a bit disconcerting for me when they fall in love with the baddie or walk away with a message different from the one I was trying to convey.  The reader's life and beliefs, heck, even what he smoked today or what she drank last night, can change how they understand any book, fiction or non-fiction.

What about if you enjoy the book?  Surely someone who enjoys a book will put those ideas into action, right?  Really?  Do I even have to address this one?  How many of you out there have self-help books just lying about your place that you've read, felt really connected with you, and then, well, you just never got around to it?  Yup, that's right.  Most readers will never take that next step for even the most general of self-help books, so what makes anyone think they are actually going to put a fictional scenario into practice for more than a few dates or scenes?  For all of the kink groups that have seen an up-tick in attendance, how many of them will see those same newcomers in a year, or two, or a decade from now?  You can't even keep folks who found kink by themselves in your clubs for more than a few years at most before there is burnout or just plain disgust with all the politicking.

There will be a minority of people who do try out the ideas in these four books. In the case of Sandberg's ideas, they might work for some women, and they might not for others, but the fact is that anyone who works at any type of job and those of us who stay home are constantly negotiating our position in the world, in our families, and in our own minds.  If Lean In sounds like something that might help you, give it a try; just don't expect your coworker to try it, too.  In the Fifty Shades trilogy the issue is perhaps a bit more risky.  Poorly-understood and -described sex might be copied and prove damaging to those trying things out.  If you are going to write about sex, I'm a big believer in figuring out what works and writing it realistically.  On the other hand, readers should be adult enough to do enough research or go slowly enough that they minimize risk, but we also know we live in a lawsuit-crazy society where folks sue companies over hot coffee that was surprisingly hot.  Authors vary in how much responsibility they want to take for such depictions.

The other area of potential harm that many critics cite is the relationship models shown in the books.  In short, these critics claim that all four books promote a sexist view; they encourage women (mostly) and men to continue to live in a way that is harmful to women (and somewhat to men).  I don't think any of the five authors on Butt-Kicking Women Write About It are cool with sexism, but this worry, which I've seen expressed about all four of these books, is really very burdened by its own sexism.  Let me try to explain what I mean.

Just as you really can't believe that everyone who reads and enjoys a book will do what the book says, neither can you believe that readers must identify only with a character of the same sex, race, or any other category they might fall into.  Over the generations enough little girls have grown up to reject the "boys as active, girls as support systems" model from literature to create political and social movements as well as private lives that demonstrated that those models were more a matter of nurture than of nature. Little boys, too, did not always buy into the role models they were given in books or anywhere else, and those men then supported the changes in the laws, and society as well, that have increased rights for people who did not look like them.  While it may seem more reasonable that one would identify with a character or author of the same sex, that implies that humans beings always behave in a reasonable and predictable fashion.  As a historian I can tell you that such generalities are never universals.  To be more specific to these four books, when the Fifty Shades series was getting the first media attention, I recall several reports in which male readers who were interviewed explicitly identified with Anastasia and not Christian at all. This finding would not surprise anyone who recalls the studies of Nancy Friday and other sex researchers before and after her.  Of course, there were some people interviewed who said they didn't identify with either character, too, but who cares about those folks, right?

So if the problem can't really be about the reader identifying with one particular character or situation and then putting that identification into action, what is the real problem these criticisms are trying to get at?

The problem these critics are trying to express in greater or lesser degrees all deal with the idea that women should be or are submissive.  This rubs me wrong in two main ways, not because I wouldn't have a problem with this idea (I do) or that it hasn't been used repeatedly to control women (it has and is) but that there are innate problems with some of the interpretations of this idea.

The first is that submission is weakness, that it is an extreme loss of power, and that lacking equality is an incredibly horrific condition for anyone to exist in.  While I cannot personally grok the appeal of sexual (or other types of) submission, I am not foolish enough to think that I have never and will never have to submit to another human being.  We submit to other human beings all the time. Why is submission a good thing in one situation but a bad thing in another?  For some it is a matter of force versus consent.  For others it is a matter of nature versus nurture.  The issue of submission is very complex, and few criticisms of James or Sandberg spend the time necessary to really grapple with it.  Just saying that it's wrong to show women as submissive is shortchanging the realities of human life. Just saying that it makes you uncomfortable and therefore it must be wrong, period, seems like a last-ditch attack from a grade schooler.

The second problem that I see with the criticism of these books is one of overinterpreting what the author is saying.  This happens increasingly all the time online and even in discussions held among friends.  The problem is that unless an author states clearly and every time that she (or he) is only talking about a very specific person or small group, the readers (fans and critics alike) often assume she (or he) is talking about everyone.  This assumption somehow attempts to make the author responsible both for the words she wrote and the ones she didn't write.  Sometimes authors are indeed putting forth such general ideas that they are pushing a sexist or racist or whatever -ist agenda that you can imagine.  When they do that, you can rightly critique that view.  But often it isn't a matter of what the author writes (or doesn't), but what the reader feels or thinks, that is the cause of this "it applies to every (fill in the category)."  As an author I need to take responsibility for what I write; as a reader you need to take responsibility for any interpretations that go beyond my words.

If these four books really did say, “every woman needs to be submissive,” I would feel that some criticisms of them are justified, simply because this idea is just a flat-out lie.  I don’t think they do say this; please, someone out there, if I’m incorrect in my understanding of them, prove this to me.

But even if these books did say that every woman should be/must be submissive, they wouldn’t be saying anything new, nor would they be promoting the only message out there for women and men to read.  That's a cultural problem, one that goes beyond the individual author into the history of our world and the way we raise children and reward each other for our behaviors and attitudes.

The Fifty Shades trilogy and Lean In are just the latest books to cause a furor about sex and gender roles.  The books don't, and can't, create sexism, any more than they can magically cure it.  Instead of getting angry with the authors, look to yourself and ask yourself if you are willing to admit that you, too, are buying into the stereotypes. Then ask if you are willing to do something about it, such as buying other books and spread the word, or even writing and publishing your own.  I do want to thank Garcia for her article that created my desire to write this week, because she has taken that step, even if I don't agree with everything she wrote, by making it personal and  not applying her response to every woman out there.

See you next Friday and go have a piece of good chocolate this weekend!