There are times when even the most opinionated of us need to step back, take a deep breath, and shut the fuck up. Never do I get this feeling more than when it comes to discussing BDSM. People have raged to me before about my views on safewords, and various boundaries that I skip unthinkingly across. I do this because I am a hedonist, and often because I’m an idiot: sometimes I enjoy doing the kinds of play that experienced kinksters will warn against. In short, if you want an intro to kink I’m not the right person to come to.

Luckily I know someone who is – this week’s guest blog is from Charlie, who has written an excellent book that introduces people to BDSM in a safe, intelligent, and genuinely entertaining way. This guide is there to teach people many of the things that I’m too stupid and horny to say properly.  I’ve read it, and it’s ace. It’s also free to download as a pdf – so have at it.

So, with an intro to ‘Playing Around’, I’m delighted to welcome Charlie…

Playing Around (with punctuation): An insight into a kinky author’s suffering

Thwack!

“That should be a semicolon, Charlie,” my editor/partner [editor note: yes, I slept with them for their writing] muttered sternly, pointing their riding crop at the offending comma. “And you don’t spell ‘negotiation’ like that.”

It’s a tough life for an author, especially for those writing a book about BDSM whose editor is all-too-willing to take advice from it (not that advice is particularly needed). Yet despite this hardship, I recently released my free introduction to kink-e-book: Playing Around: A Short Introduction to Kink for the Curious.

Kink has come somewhat more into the public eye since the release of Fifty Shades of Are-You-Fucking-Kidding-Me, but as a (relatively) experienced kinkster, I can think of nothing more horrifying than people learning about the activities and dynamics of BDSM as a result of it:

“Whilst there’s no one right way of being kinky, there are definitely wrong ways – and the ubiquitous Fifty Shades of Grey highlights many of these: it has an incredibly poor view of consent (a contract is most definitely not a good way of going about consent. And complaining about safewording?), portrays abuse as BDSM (and vice versa), and ultimately implies that kinkiness is a problem from which to be saved…”

That’s not to say that there aren’t kink guides and resources available, but these are frequently aimed at people with at least a modicum of experience. For the newbie, the jargon-rich culture can be a little off-putting, to say the least.

I aimed to write the kind of guide I would have liked when I was a fledgling pervert, experimenting with my equally naïve partner. We had numerous conversations in hushed tones about what we would do with a short length of ribbon we acquired, or the flimsy and severely unimpressive riding crop we bought from Amazon: conversations which were, for the most part, fruitless. We could really have done with some guidance.

We were lucky: others report bigger issues. From a rather dire experience in which a favourite silk scarf was sacrificed – though only after a somewhat lengthy hunt for scissors – to an unfortunate incident where “harder” and “no harder” were confused. When you know what you’re doing, kink is both safer and more fun.

Kink, consent and communication

It’s not just the safety and fun that concerned me about, though. Fifty Shades (and society at large) has a huge problem with consent and communication: there is a worrying notion that negotiation is simply tiresome and detracts from the sexual experience. It is a vital aspect of any interaction, particularly sexual interactions – and even more so if you’re going to be tying people up and hitting them for fun. For me, it was just as – if not more – important to provide a practical guide to negotiation and consent as it was to talk about how to actually do the things in the first place.

“However you intend to include BDSM in your relationship(s)- as an introduction to an existing vanilla relationship, further exploration in a relationship where you have done some experimentation, as an active member of the scene, or anything else for that matter – you will need to communicate your needs and desires (and listen to theirs) to any partners you play with. Be honest – proper communication can only happen when everyone involved isn’t overly embarrassed or scared of voicing their feelings […] It’s likely that your partner is going to be feeling the same fear and uncertainty – be supportive!”

Not only is consent and negotiation a vital aspect of safety – both physical and emotional – it can, despite what Fifty Shades and its ilk implies – be an enjoyable experience in itself. Due to our cities being inconveniently located, Xandra, my editor/partner, and I often do this sort of thing via the wonders of the internet: it builds anticipation and ensures that we’re both brimming in excitement when we get to see each other. And of course, this also helped us to make an effective system of punishments for grammatical errors, as well as bribery with topless pictures.

Yes, it’s a tough life for an author, but for the worthy goal of turning communication into incoherent screams and moans in bedrooms across the world, I’d like to think it was worth it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me – Xandra’s insisting that they edit this post too…

Whether you’re looking to try something hot and spanky for the first time, or – like me – you’re up to your knickers in filth but still making lots of mistakes, or if you just want to find out more, download Playing Kinky: A Short Introduction to Kink for the Curious as a free pdf (released under a Creative Commons license), or head to Amazon US or UK where you can get it as an ebook.

I want to talk about fantasy and issues around consent. This blog touches on both of these things. Everything in it is consensual, but if discussions around this upset you or make you uncomfortable, you might prefer not to read it.

Consent is utterly fundamental when you’re having sex. It’s so fundamental, so important, that the vast majority of people wouldn’t even need to hear that stated: you just know. As you know it’s wrong to punch a stranger, sneak meat into vegetarian lasagne, or throw a kitten into a lake.

However, despite knowing these things are wrong, we’re more than happy for them to happen in fiction. We’ll cheer when the baddie gets punched in an action film, smile when Tom gets hit by Jerry, or laugh along when David Mitchell suggests that Robert Webb should kill and eat a cat. We’re perfectly capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality.

‘Bending’ by Greta Christina

I was recently sent a copy of ‘Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More’ by Greta Christina. It’s a thoughtful, sordid, delicious shock of a book. She and I clearly have some very similar fantasies, and when I read it I was frequently torn between shouting “OH JESUS YES” and sneaking off the train for a quick wank in the toilets. They’re mostly BDSM-focused, and an excellent demonstration of just how much variety there is in even that one tiny slice of the sexual spectrum. If you like my blog, and the sort of things I write about, I’d be gobsmacked if you didn’t like at least a few of the stories in this book.

However, some of the stories deal with fantasies that involve non-consent. One or more of the fictional participants is being cajoled, bullied or forced into doing something sexual. They describe sort of activities – like a cat being served up for dinner – that we wouldn’t want to see in real life. But does that stop them being hot? Does that make them unethical? I don’t think so. And although I could waffle on about this until my feline steak goes cold, I couldn’t put it better than Greta Christina herself.

Here is an extract from the book’s introduction that she’s kindly allowed me to publish as part of her blog tour:

These are not nice stories.

These are not “erotica” — except in the sense that “erotica” has become the term of art in publishing for “dirty stories with some vaguely serious literary intent.” These are not tender stories about couples in love making love. (Except for the one that is.) These are not sweet, gentle, happy stories about unicorns fucking rainbows. (Except for the one about the unicorn fucking the rainbow.)

A lot of fucked-up shit happens in a lot of these stories. Stuff happens here that is borderline consensual. Stuff happens that is not at all consensual. Stuff happens in which people manipulate other people into doing sexual things they don’t want to do. Stuff happens in which people do sexual things they’re ashamed of. Stuff happens in these stories that, if they happened in real life, I would be appalled and enraged by.

Stuff happens here that excites me to think about when I whack off.

I apparently have a very fucked-up sexual imagination.

But there is also love in these stories. Some of them, anyway. There is the love of long-term couples; there is the love of newly-discovered lovers; there is the love of friends. There is affection — between lovers, between colleagues, between strangers encountered on the street. There is respect: for love, for desire, for scars, for the complicated places where love and desire and scars overlap.

Above all, there is respect for sex itself. I think — I hope — that this respect underlies every story in this book. Beneath the excitement and the fear, the pain and the shame, the helplessness and the hunger, the danger and the love… there is always the idea that sex matters.

Since most of these stories are kinky, and since some people reading this may not be super-familiar with kink, I want to take a moment to talk about kinky porn.

Some of these stories are about consensual sadomasochism. They’re about negotiated SM scenes between consenting adults, with safewords and limits and attention to safety. There’s conflict in the stories, and mis-steps, and bad decisions… but fundamentally, what happens within those stories is consenting. They are attempts to express, in fiction, some of the things that consensual sadomasochists do.

And some of these stories aren’t. Some of these stories are about force, and violation, and abuse of power. They are attempts to describe, not what consensual sadomasochists do, but some of the things we think about. They are attempts to describe some of the images that come into our minds when we masturbate, or have sex, or engage in consensual SM. They are attempts to describe some of the activities that some of us consensually act out with each other. They are fantasies.

And every single story in this book is consensual.

They’re consensual because they’re fiction. They’re consensual because they’re made-up. I consented to write them; you’re consenting to read them. If you don’t want to read this kind of thing, this isn’t the book for you. I encourage you to put it down, and read something else.

It’s funny. When it comes to things that aren’t sex, people seem to understand this distinction. People get that enjoying spy novels doesn’t mean you want to join the CIA; that enjoying murder mysteries doesn’t mean you want to kill people; that enjoying heist thrillers doesn’t mean you want to break into Fort Knox. People understand that it’s fun and exciting to imagine things we wouldn’t actually want to do — even things we think are immoral.

But for some reason, porn often gets held to a different standard. Depicting a fantasy of a sex act is often assumed to be an endorsement of that act. So let me spell it out: I do not endorse sexual force, abuse of power, rape, or any form of violation of sexual consent. I am vehemently opposed to them.

I am, however, unapologetic about the fact that I like to fantasize about them. If we have any freedom at all, it’s the freedom between our ears: the freedom to think about whatever we like. And that includes sex.

If this has intrigued you, do check out the book – available on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, and eventually print and audiobook too.

And if this has enraged you, I’d genuinely love to know why. What makes sex different? I don’t want to live in a world where we can’t separate fantasy from reality. That means not just comedy, cartoons, and action films but sex as well.

Someone on Twitter has pointed out that this blog is quite disturbing/triggering, because there is an element of non-consent/coercion. Please be aware of this before you start reading. If you’d like any reassurance, know that I am absolutely fine, and this swingers’ club trip happened a long time ago – both me and the guy I went with discussed it afterwards in detail, and established some of our own rules of engagement to go along with the standard swingers club rules, so we could both have a sexier time. 

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