I think I’m going to actually do a theme week – partially anyway – on BDSM. For ease of pronouns I’m going to use she a lot for sub and he a lot for Dom but there are female tops and male bottoms too.

I just finished up a partial for Wolf Unbound and I’m probably going to get back to Marked By Magic this week since I’m in a BDSM state of mind. I love to write D/s storylines. Like menages though, it has to be the right combination of story and character with realism threaded through it or it’s just a gimmick and it misses the depth of emotion the issue provides. I don’t write them all the time but there are elements of kink and power exchange in many of my books.

Tomorrow I’m going to talk about consent but for today, I want to touch on the depth of emotion involved in power exchange because this is what I think people miss when they write D/s for the titilation factor/as a gimmick.

There’s a woman on one of the romance boards I haunt (and have for many years now) and she’s got major issues with BDSM. Which is fine. It’s not everyone’s thing and preferences make us human. But what always gets me is that her objections to it are based on outright falsehoolds and misperceptions of what D/s and power exchange truly is. It’s knee jerk and I find it happens a lot with BDSM in general. Partly that’s because of how it’s written.

For me, when I write it, there’s a depth of emotion that taps into the darker part of the sexual self. And I don’t mean blood sacrifices to satan dark, I mean the edges of things we want but are too shy to articulate, the craving to give up control and let someone else push your boundaries.

There are other things I like to play with – like letting go of self and slipping into an altered state like subspace or ropespace. Like the sub being seen and thought of as a beautiful object. Not in a negative sense but in the sense of being wanton and on display purely for someone else’s pleasure. There’s a depth of strength in that, in being able to let go and simply be there for someone else.

At the same time, I grow tired of seeing sexually submissive women being written as damaged and weak. Are there sexually submissive women who are damaged and weak? Yes. Are there sexually submissive women who are intelligent, whole and strong? Yes. Since I strive to write my heroines as strong women, I find embracing stereotypes to not be helpful. I don’t write weak heroines no matter the story. She may be hurt or damaged in some sense, but I don’t write her as seeking a certain kind of sexual expression to act out her issues. That’s just me and my own writerly preferences.

I love to explore why a character submits. What does she get from it? And I don’t mean, “ooh he spanked me” but what is it about having her arms held above her head that makes her go slightly sluggish? What does it do to her body other than thrust out her breasts? What about her reactions as she watches him?

That’s one thing I notice not being addressed very much – what does the Dom/top look like when he’s working? Does his face change? Does his attitude change? How? And yes, we know he’s a Dom and all, but it’s not easy to be a good Dom so give us some of his POV please. What does it feel like for him to dominate her? Why does he do it? And yes, we know he can spank her (and god, you’d think all D/s people did was spank the way it’s written most of the time) – but physically and emotionally, what does her submission do for him?

Anyway, just a basic toe in the water here. Tomorrow I’ll be back for more with an entry about consent and safewords.

OH! And some excellent D/s authors? I’ll give you one a day and at the end of the week I’ll pimp a few books for you that I love. Today though – Joey Hill is up there for me because she absolutely writes her characters as real people with real motivations. And she writes Dommes and male submissives in a convincing and sexy way without calling on stereotypes. I’ve not read too many other authors who can do it as well as she does. BTW, she’s got a BDSM paranormal coming from Berkley this summer called The Vampire Queen’s Servant and you can bet II’ve got this one pre-ordered from Amazon