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| Where's my Tebow? |
I saw this ad for an Ashton Drake doll, licensed by the NFL. This baby sums up my feelings. I'm a sad fan. I want my Tebow back. Now I'll have to comfort myself with longing looks at Champ Bailey.
I'm a Sad Football Fan
I saw this ad for an Ashton Drake doll, licensed by the NFL. This baby sums up my feelings. I'm a sad fan. I want my Tebow back. Now I'll have to comfort myself with longing looks at Champ Bailey.
BDSM Books for Writers
Given the the popularity of the Fifty Shades books, I started to wonder if more romance writers will jump on the BDSM bandwagon. If so, how will these folks do research? Will these authors, like EL James, just use the internet? Or will they buy and read "BDSM for authors who don't know much about BDSM" books?
I've already mentioned Tymber Dalton's book Whip Me, Beat Me, Make Me Write Hot Sex in a previous post. (In related news, Tymber has recently published a marketing book Pimp Yourself: Easy, Painless, and Cheap Self-Promotion for Writers).
BDSM for Writers by Charley Ferrer is also a potential resource. Ferrer tells us "It's imperative to understand that BDSM is a distinct community with its own belief system and even its own psychological make-up." This grand statement is intended to establish her authority in BDSM matters. It's also wildly incorrect. Kink folk don't take a certification class in order to call themselves BDSM practitioners. They are not a mono-culture. BDSMers are just as inhomogenous as the rest of society. I suspect such simplifications may be a general problem with "BDSM for authors who don't know much about BDSM" books. In reality, one person can't explain everything about BDSM. Not the belief system, not the psychology. That usually makes writing BDSM fiction guides pretentious or defensive. Or both.
I was pretty interested when The ABC's of BDSM by Dama deNoche came out. This book is not meant for writers. Officially anyway. It's a sort of dictionary, wherein various BDSM terms are defined. I downloaded a sample--getting all the A's and midway through the Bs.
I don't review BDSM fiction in this blog, because I consider it a conflict of interest. But I'm okay with reviewing non-fiction. So here's a review of the sample. (Is it fair to review just part of a book? Maybe not. But the abc's aren't intrinsically biased, and there's no true climax and resolution in a dictionary. )
The ABC's of BDSM starts out with a forward which refers to the "Lifestyle". Guide books use the lifestyle term all the time. I've blogged about my objections to it. In my opinion, it's an example of pretension: everyone's doing the same thing and lives the same way, and the way BDSMers live is important enough to be capitalized.
Now to the dictionary--at least up until the middle of the b's. There are indeed many relevant entries in the sample: anal play, aftercare, bondage. The emotional content is, unfortunately, missing. The book gives a dry recounting of what's what. Not the whys. Why does the bottom get a charge out of immobility in bondage? What does the Top get out of tying someone up? No answers in this book.
The weirdest thing about deNoche's book (partway through the B's at least) is a rather long explication of Bestiality. She points out that "the human and the dog can be physically harmed during the sex act even if they are trying to be careful and safe." Most of us, Lifestylers included, would not classify bestiality as a part of BDSM. Neither would they think a dog is capable of being "careful and safe." To her credit, she does admit that consensuality is absent in these interactions.
Books on writing BDSM don't sell as well as general writing books like The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, or Stephen King's On Writing. That could mean that most writers unfamiliar with BDSM use the internet as a research partner. That's probably not such a bad thing--if the research includes investigating the emotional aspects of kink. There are many intimate, highly moving blogs by practitioners on the web.
Another option for BDSM writers is to read guide books for BDSMers. I'd recommend books by Jay Wiseman, Dossie Easton, and John and Libby Warren.
I've already mentioned Tymber Dalton's book Whip Me, Beat Me, Make Me Write Hot Sex in a previous post. (In related news, Tymber has recently published a marketing book Pimp Yourself: Easy, Painless, and Cheap Self-Promotion for Writers).
BDSM for Writers by Charley Ferrer is also a potential resource. Ferrer tells us "It's imperative to understand that BDSM is a distinct community with its own belief system and even its own psychological make-up." This grand statement is intended to establish her authority in BDSM matters. It's also wildly incorrect. Kink folk don't take a certification class in order to call themselves BDSM practitioners. They are not a mono-culture. BDSMers are just as inhomogenous as the rest of society. I suspect such simplifications may be a general problem with "BDSM for authors who don't know much about BDSM" books. In reality, one person can't explain everything about BDSM. Not the belief system, not the psychology. That usually makes writing BDSM fiction guides pretentious or defensive. Or both.
I was pretty interested when The ABC's of BDSM by Dama deNoche came out. This book is not meant for writers. Officially anyway. It's a sort of dictionary, wherein various BDSM terms are defined. I downloaded a sample--getting all the A's and midway through the Bs.I don't review BDSM fiction in this blog, because I consider it a conflict of interest. But I'm okay with reviewing non-fiction. So here's a review of the sample. (Is it fair to review just part of a book? Maybe not. But the abc's aren't intrinsically biased, and there's no true climax and resolution in a dictionary. )
The ABC's of BDSM starts out with a forward which refers to the "Lifestyle". Guide books use the lifestyle term all the time. I've blogged about my objections to it. In my opinion, it's an example of pretension: everyone's doing the same thing and lives the same way, and the way BDSMers live is important enough to be capitalized.
Now to the dictionary--at least up until the middle of the b's. There are indeed many relevant entries in the sample: anal play, aftercare, bondage. The emotional content is, unfortunately, missing. The book gives a dry recounting of what's what. Not the whys. Why does the bottom get a charge out of immobility in bondage? What does the Top get out of tying someone up? No answers in this book.
The weirdest thing about deNoche's book (partway through the B's at least) is a rather long explication of Bestiality. She points out that "the human and the dog can be physically harmed during the sex act even if they are trying to be careful and safe." Most of us, Lifestylers included, would not classify bestiality as a part of BDSM. Neither would they think a dog is capable of being "careful and safe." To her credit, she does admit that consensuality is absent in these interactions.
Books on writing BDSM don't sell as well as general writing books like The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, or Stephen King's On Writing. That could mean that most writers unfamiliar with BDSM use the internet as a research partner. That's probably not such a bad thing--if the research includes investigating the emotional aspects of kink. There are many intimate, highly moving blogs by practitioners on the web.
Another option for BDSM writers is to read guide books for BDSMers. I'd recommend books by Jay Wiseman, Dossie Easton, and John and Libby Warren.
Saturday Musings: Rough Times in Colorado
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| Fire in Northern Colorado |
In June and July we had fires in the nearby foothills. I took this photo from my back deck during the first week of the High Park fire. The plume of smoke reflects the setting sun.
Colorado is certainly feeling the effects of global climate change. Summers are replete with damaging hailstorms, tornadoes, abnormal heat and, of course, fires. Even the winters are too warm, resulting in overwintering pine beetle, which kills off the pines. Last year, when the snow fell, the trees were fully leafed. The hard frost--and a true autumn--never came.
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| Carpenter Greg Zanis erecting crosses in Aurora |
I've lived in Colorado for a long time, so it was painful to watch news coverage of the Aurora rampage. Beyond my horror and sadness, I also resented hearing sentimental platitudes about how the community of Aurora will eventually heal. The news programs used Littleton after Columbine as an example of a community coming together after a tragedy. In reality, the Columbine killings fractured the community. Video feed showing swarms of police outside the school building, waiting for the victims to crawl out, or drop down from windows, is something you can't forget. Even after the shooters killed themselves, the police remained crouched outside the school, weapons at the ready, while children and teachers bled inside.
Columbine resulted in years of accusations, civil suits, and fake martyrs. Poignantly, the carpenter who erected makeshift crosses to acknowledge the Columbine dead felt forced to remove the crosses after he got too many nasty phone calls. His highly personal method of grieving included acknowledging the death of the two teen gunmen. A group of Grief Deciders took it upon themselves to harass the man. The Columbine crosses builder, carpenter Greg Zanis, returned to Colorado recently. This time he honored the Aurora victims. He's pictured above. I'm glad he came back. I'm not very religious, but when I see compassion mixed with sincerity, I have to applaud it. Grief Deciders don't have either.
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| Flash mob |
To celebrate, I participated in a flash mob in old town Fort Collins. We all did some Zumba grooving. A little silliness is good for my soul. Especially when I can lord my flash mob participation over my kids. Because, yanno, I'm just that cool.
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