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kaigouThis is a multi-review, informally, only because the listed works in each post are stories that have acted as trigger for some of my thoughts, or illustrate my perspective in some way.
I ended up with these e-stories on my tbr list either because I already liked the author’s other work (Hawke, Gabriel, Cartwright) or because I’d come across a glowing review while casually researching how authors had handled issues of power exchange within context of gender relations. Which sounds like a really pretentious way to approach what’s basically a bunch of erotica-romance with strong bdsm themes, but I never said I wasn’t intellectual, just that I’m not elitist.
(How can I be? Some of this stuff is trash, I’m telling ya, with usual ymmv-caveats applying.)
CARTWRIGHT Sierra - Unbound Commitment | Signed, Sealed and Delivered [MF]
GABRIEL Reese - His Submissive [MF]
HAWKE Morgan - Fallen Star | Victorious Star [MFM]
KADE Cyna - Mastering Marissa [MF]
BARRON Melinda - Sweet Awakening [MFM]
LAURENSTON Shelly - Pack Challenge | Go Fetch | Here Kitty Kitty [MF]
These are all works that work from the same basic playlist: newbie and/or unaware female introduced to d/s and/or s/m by one or more dominant (alpha-seme) males. Some of the stories don’t just walk the border of kidnap-seduce fantasies but fall right over into it (Fallen Star, Victorious Star, Mastering Marissa), some do a bit more coaxing first (Sweet Awakening, Satyr’s Myst), some have a female character who’s curious if ignorant (Unbound Commitment, Signed Sealed & Delivered). Only one has a newbie-female who truly puts up a fight of any worth (His Submissive). Well, Laurenston’s novels are the only ones not focusing explicitly on a power exchange, but I included hers for a reason, and I’ll get to that in a bit. First, the thoughts jumbling in my head about the works by the first five authors listed.
Hawke’s Fallen Star has its good moments, and its oh-so-stereotyped SFF-bondage-wetdream moments, but it was a quick read with some nice characterization points that I tucked away in my head to remember. What’s became more important (as I read other works and had something to compare) was that this might be one of the few in which the female-character’s essential traits are not reduced to dust and wiped away to reveal brand!spanking!new all-submissive all-the-time female drone. Pun possibly intended. For instance:
What gets me about Hawke’s work, in the worldbuilding? Same thing that gets me about a lot of the SFF-influenced erotica/romance: the authors have taken something that’s a classic stereotype in romance -- that of luuurve at first sight -- and warped, manipulated, reconstructed it into something even more controlling. Throw in any sort of S/m, D/s, elements, and I’ve yet to read a book where the mingling of these storylines didn’t creep me out, if not made me want to retch.
For instance, from a straight-up contemporary romance with a D/s plotline, here’s a bit from the opening pages of Cartwrights’ Signed, Sealed and Delivered. Basically, protagonist (Alana) has flown from the US to London to meet some guy who she thinks will finally show her the hawt awesomeness that is submission, yada yada yada. Okay, wiling victim, which is one step up from unwilling, certainly, but still. Here, read:
I can’t turn my brain off: I read the lines, “Throwing away a purse that cost a month’s salary was another, entirely” and I think, hell yeah, it sure as fuck is. (And I hit the boiling point at the next paragraph, of the journal being included in the to-be-dumped pile -- it’s damn, damn hard to read that, as a writer, and not feel sudden irrational, protective rage, I confess.) See, this is the thing, what’s going on in my reaction, that I can’t turn off. Women get discounted enough in the real world, and more often than not, really do have to work twice as hard as the men around them to get half as much respect, and the money we earn is -- like it is for anyone, true -- a huge, huge element of self-respect.
Whether or not we realize it consciously, being able to pay your own bills and stand on your own, is empowering; to purchase something outrageously expensive isn’t necessarily (only) a fashion statement, it’s a signal that you’re doing well. We may purchase it because we like it, want it, need it, or think it looks good on us, but a less-admitted part of that is also because in doing so, we’re saying to some invisible audience: we’re buying this because we can. It is a clear fruit of our labor.
So to me, to have a story open up where a man -- regardless of whatever sexual turn-on might come later as a reward -- for that man to say, in effect: ditch those things that exist as status symbols of your success, your hard-earned self-rewards... Y’know, not just a turn-on for me. More like a big freaking turn-off. I don’t freaking care if it were god himself standing there, I’d be like: you know what? No way, asshole. Do not tell me to throw away the external, because I won’t, no more than I will pitch the internal.
That may seem like an overreaction, but note that the character herself spends more than just a few words describing the sacrifice made to achieve this external fruit of her labor. There are plenty of things we have, and purchase, which indicate success, but sometimes a single item can become the symbol of all the rest: it's our own personal synecdoche. Which is probably why my hackles go up like hell from that scene, because I find myself so quickly relating to the character's position and unable to stop myself from drawing a bead from removing the symbolic (this represents my autonomy) to the actual (next, you'll tell me to quit my job?).
Which may just be me, but hey.
(Honestly, my reaction might have been completely different if the guy had taken all of it, saying, “you won’t be needing this,” and later we find out the protagonist is one of those folks who bolsters herself with things she can’t afford to cover up some kind of insecurity. Maybe even, at the end, to discover she respects herself as a worthwhile, hard-working person of integrity even without the extra trappings. But the setup as presented? Curdles me. Totally.)
Barron’s Sweet Awakening and Gabriel’s His Submissive also play on these themes, where the woman willingly turns over control of her self-respect, into another’s hands. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware that D/s (and its cousin S/m) have a lot more going on than just the hollywood-ized version of humiliation and/or ultra-control. The point I’m making is that in the realms of fiction, this control is most often not presented as a conscious or willing choice -- which is possibly the only way in which the excerpt above does get it right (in that the protagonist is not coerced by any means but chooses to pitch the stuff on her own).
In most other d/s-themed stories, though, the real-world reluctance to turn over all control, versus the fantasy/fiction requirement of control-loss, means the author plays the old romance game of love at first sight, although in this case it’s usually lust-at-first-sight. Hell, I’d go so far as to say, overwhelming-uncontrollable-lust-at-first-sight. As in, the woman is reduced to near-helplessness in the face of her own omg!total!lust when she’s facing the luuuuust interest: can’t think, can’t walk across the room, can’t defend herself, oh, woe. Etc, etc.
Now, mix these into the world of SFF, and you get stories like Kade’s Mastering Marissa, which is really nothing more than a woman-written version of Gor, and it’s just about as much fun to read. That is to say, not much after the first ten pages or so: the bloom is off that rose pretty damn fast. A woman travels to a distant planet to meet her natural father for the first time, and ends up getting trapped/tricked by a political rival of her father’s; the rival not only kidnaps her but forces/tricks a series of bonds on her that render her tied to him. Permanently.
Y’know, it’s bad enough when we talk about non-consensual sex, which just isn’t a turn-on for me at all. Not even one iota. But when an author uses SFF tropes -- magic, strange sciences, whatever -- to justify what really amounts to a type of mind-control, it turns my stomach. What we have here is basically not just someone who’s being raped, but is additionally being made to enjoy it. In the case of Mastering Marissa, or at least the first chapter or three I could stomach before violently shutting the story, this forced-sex + forced-lust occurs even as the protagonist is still able, intellectually, to know that she finds the situation humiliating, demeaning, and not one she’d choose even in a lifetime of blue moons.
But, of course, in the end (or so I assume, given the other stories I’ve read, bleah), the physical wins out, the lust takes over, and eventually you’ve got a female character who says, “well, it just feels so good, and he’s been pretty nice to me otherwise, so hey, this isn’t so bad.”
Am I the only one who reads SFF-blend stories like this and thinks: Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?
The one true exception to this list is (unexpectedly) Cartwright’s Unbound Commitment, in which a young woman -- mostly from curiosity, maybe a bit of boredom -- manages to convince an experienced Dom that she’s an experienced sub/slave (she’s not)... and once she’s stuck in their week together, she realizes just how out of her depths she is. Although at times she’s turned on by some of what’s happening, the majority of it (during the week’s start, when she’s struggling the most) is not a turn on, but neither is it necessarily against-her-will, or really that coerced in any way.
In fact, there’s none of this “helpless against her own lust” so much as there’s “a whole lotta could-be-reverse psychology” with the Dom saying, look, you’re obviously clueless, and if you can’t take this, just leave. The good part about that (other than her stubbornness, which is rather endearing and sympathetic, if hard-headed sometimes) is that it means her actions are never outside her own control. That is, her attempts to relinquish control are attempts within her control: that’s the dichotomy of the dynamics, and what really intrigues me about them, and why I like reading how authors have handled such a complex interpersonal state.
It’s things like this, for instance, in Unbound Committment, when the protagonist is left (as far as she knows) by herself, tied to a type of padded sawhorse. Unexpectedly, the Dom asks her a question:
I ping on the notion of “attempts to relinquish control being within control” because the D/s theme -- and if wrapped up in SFF, take this to its extreme -- is often an extreme in its own right of the crap you can read in a certain style of contemporary romance. The kind I have in mind is one where the female protagonist starts out the story a bit acerbic, maybe kinda prickly thanks to past heartbreak, self-protective even, strong, possibly witty and even scathing, just your basic all-kinds-of-fun character with a strong mind and strong will and the guts to say it. Then she falls in luuuurve, and whammo, the author hits her with the stupid-bat.
Suddenly we have mopey-girl, languishing from TSTL misunderstandings, pining away in the bad and ridiculously euphoric in the good. Hello, personality switch, much? It’s like the message is: if you’re a woman with a brain and a mouth, that’s just because you’ve not yet fallen in luuuurve with Mr Right. Once you do, you become the usual spineless simpering man-crazy female, because of course that mouth was just a ridiculously transparent attempt to protect yourself, silly you, think how much time you’ve wasted using that mouth to be, well, mouthy, when you could’ve been baking cookies?
I exaggerate, but not by much. I’ve read my share of contemporary chick-fic quasi-romance where the protagonist got a sudden personality transplant for the worse, straightaway upon meeting Mr Right. I’d be wiling to argue that most of those novelists don’t intend to shove home that message, but look, it’s in a lot of the texts. A steadfast refusal to deconstruct -- or just no interest in thinking about what a storyline is really saying -- and you end up with the same stupid mid-story segue, over and over. Put down the manuscript and give it some thought, people!
There’s a second part of what bothers me in the SFF-blend, too, which is the fact that the helplessness caused by magical-spell-causing-luuurve (or luuuust), or the crazy-ass science that designates this person is your One Twu Wuv, isn’t balanced. That is, if the author is going to undermine a character’s autonomy by introducing an extreme like overcome-by-luuurve, then what you’re left with is really a long and involved series of essentially nonconsensual sex scenes unless the protagonist being sexxed up is also able to defend herself. See, that’s the crucial aspect to the entire D/s dynamic, dichotomy, that can make it such an intriguing interpersonal study: that to relinquish control requires having control in the first place. Sadly, it’s also what authors seem to discard right off the bat, if they even consider it in the first place.
If, however, the female protagonist is quite capable of beating the crap out of anyone who touches her without her permission, of defending herself, or just plain being able to say “No, that’s enough,” and be able to back it up, then -- and only then -- does any sort of surrender actually mean something. Otherwise, it’s a weak-willed, or weak-limbed, person surrendering what wasn’t really much of a hold-out in the first place. And if this is a world where someone can be magically forced into some kind of luuurve-bond, why can’t it be a world where a woman could level a guy with a single punch if she so chooses?
Granted, all of these stories (and the rest of their ilk, based on reading the genre) emphasize over and over that the guy, y’know, really respects her, and everything he’s doing is for her pleasure, blah blah blah. Okay, so it’s humiliating to walk around without clothes on, but it’s not actually painful and hey, him requiring she do that is just how he shows that he thinks she’s, uh, marvelous. Right?
...Except if you ask me, it’s totally undermined by the fact that it doesn’t freaking matter whether or not she agrees: the author doesn’t actually grant her the ability or the strength or the wits to actually have any real choice in the matter. Saying yes and having to do action A versus saying no and being forced, compelled, overwhelmed by lust, whatever, into doing action A anyway... I just ain’t seeing that as much of a real choice. She doesn’t have any real power in the first place. No power, then where’s the power exchange?
Now, on the other hand, if it’s a matter that both the protagonist and the love interest are fully aware that if she so chose she could wipe the floor with him and not even break a sweat... Then, yes, in that case, she does hold the power such that she would have something to relinquish. Besides, if he pisses her off, treats her without respect, then she could just kick his ass and tell him to get lost -- and he would know it, too. Even if the scene plays out the exact same way, I’m much more inclined to believe good intentions on the part of an otherwise seemingly humiliating scene if I know going in that the woman really does have the self-control (over or against that stupid love-bind lust-compel magic/science), or she has the physical power, or some other power, that levels the playing field... because I can then say, and see, that the love interest’s actions happen solely at the protagonist’s discretion. There is no longer rape, because the victim is willing -- if not to help out, at least to hold her negation in abeyance for a time.
Which is why Shelly Laurenston is my Sekret Ebook Girlfriend.
In Pack Challenge, the first book of the series (and yes, I should admit, these are shapeshifter-stories, werecats, werewolves, etc, but for this author I make very big exception!) -- we meet Sara, who has an uncanny amount of strength, enough that when she says no and shoves someone backwards, his head’s going through the wall if she exerts just a minimal effort. Her guy gets rough, and gets pushy, but it’s not a non-con because she’s well capable of handing back anything and dishing out even more.
Plus, Laurenston writes a prickly dynamic so freaking well it just makes me all squirmy, because there are good parts about the story but the best damn part is the characters, hands-down. I mean, sure, any old book with a romantic-subplot (or as the main plot) is -- more often than not -- going to throw the Alpha Male at you. But I have to say, Laurenston is possibly one of the first to throw an Alpha Female right back atcha. From one of the earliest conversations between Sara and Mr. Ill-Tempered, aka Zach:
My favorite example? The evening Sara comes home after a few days of strange people making threatening moves, being followed on the road a few times, and generally enough crap going on to have her distrustful of potential badness.
And perhaps just as importantly, Sara doesn’t lose her personality once she hooks up with Zach; even more valuable to me, Laurenston doesn’t fall for the usual were-type stories where discovery is Oh So Dramatic and renders Pages of Wangst and Crap You’re A Wolf hysteria. Sara remains the pragmatic, slightly crazy, off-beat character she’s been through the entire story. Like, in grilling Mr Ill-Tempered, Zach, about shapeshifters. Zach is talking about some of the other strangers coming through Sara’s small town.
Or something like that. The second book, Go Fetch, focuses on Sarah’s friend Miki, and while Miki doesn’t have Sara’s physical strength, she is brilliant. The shortest of the three friends at 5’4”, MIki is a curvy young black woman, and a former hacker who suffered through two years of house arrest sans computer or phone, who cooks stuff up that has the American Govt’s shadier sides interested in having her develop more of the stuff, who’s collected three Master’s and working on a Doctorate because hey, it seemed like a fun thing to do... well, Miki may not be able to pound someone’s head into the wall, but she can run circles around any brain out there, and by that extent for any trouble she gets into, she can get out of twice as fast. We’re talking totally against type, if you think about it.
But that’s not to say she doesn’t have flaws. For starters, she’s utterly convinced that guys = unplanned pregnancy = being abandoned, having been raised by a single mother whose paramour had ditched her upon pregnancy. Miki’s not going to make that mistake. So when she meets Conall, who just falls for her immediately, she has no idea what to do (any more than he does, really).
And again with the absolute flip-around of power dynamics, how about this for introducing a so-called Alpha Male...
Anyway, the next time Mr Viking meets up with Miki, she’s not much better herself. He orders a cup of coffee, and she turns around and promptly runs straight into the back counter. They’re both a bit thrown by the attraction -- come on, massive viking-looking guy who’s okay-smart and short black chick who’s freaking brilliant, not a regular combination... plus, Miki has no problem playing with fire, which often revolves around saying what everyone else is thinking, and not worrying about the consequences.
For instance, after learning -- well, actually after Miki figures it out and then the three friends learn it’s true -- that the visiting group of bikers are actually shapeshifter wolves, they and the Pack meet up at a party-rave hosted by the shapeshifters.
What saves Miki from being her own special Mary Sue is that Laurenston seems to be aware that sometimes, what makes a character imperfect is not automatically obvious. In fact, sometimes (especially in romantic plotlines) the flaws are least expected and often those things that would make us less attractive. For a genre in which "being hawt / badass / cool" (like urban fantasy) or "attractive / sexy" like romance and romance-blends, it's rare to find an author willing to make a character not just imperfect... how to put it. I guess, to point out where the character isn't that good at something, in a way that can make you simultaneously laugh at the person's ridiculousness while maybe cringing a little bit because you've always wondered if you look the same to others, yourself.
For instance, this scene at the party, where Zach and Conall are watching the three women dance.
That brings us to the third book, Here Kitty Kitty, which tells the story of the last of the three good friends. Angelina is a leggy woman of Hispanic descent with all the right curves. She’s not physically strong like Sarah, and she’s not necessarily brilliant like Miki, but she does have a keen fashion sense -- oh, and a completely wild temper. She’s also one whose strength is that she’s just completely freaking unpredictable. I mean, how's this for a character introduction (in the first book):
When Angie's story opens, she’s leaving her clothing shop for the evening, when she’s approached by a not-meaning-well shifter that Angie doesn’t recognize. A threatening move (remember this is after two books of shapeshifters doing major damage, or at least trying), and Angie clocks the woman -- only to get jumped by two more shifters. When she wakes, she’s in a strange man’s bedroom, wearing nothing, and with no idea how she got there. Normally, I’d be expecting either the “omg, luuurve at first sight” scenario, or alternately the “helpless woman learns of threat against her that requires she cling to big strong he-man” (requiring mild hysteria, soon followed by luuurve etc). But this is Laurenston, so even though Angie might not have the muscles or the brains, she’s not helpless.
Just as the strange (if sinfully good-looking) man appears to be doing the let-me-comfort-you preface, she moans that she thinks she’s going to be sick. Well, that kills the mood. And so...
If I had my way, I’d probably end up repeating nearly every other scene from all three books. Not a single bit of helplessness -- except as each protagonist choose to surrender control, however temporarily -- and even when seemingly outranked, all three women were smart enough, strong enough, or quick enough to believably turn the tables to be in their favor, at least enough that I never felt as though they were beaten down and liked it, or some such stupid “helpess againt hormones” crap. There is a power exchange (though not as formalized as the more d/s-themed works), and there is the implication that Laurenston’s world contains some kind of One Twu Wuv action -- but it’s not a compulsion, it’s not something created to render the female half gleefully, almost drug-addict like, sinking into mindless joy for something that in her right mind would be considered repulsive. Every single relationship makes sense, and every single relationship is played on an level field -- even if it requires a toilet-lid or two to get it there.
I could go on, but this has rambled enough, must be to bed at some point. Ugh.
I ended up with these e-stories on my tbr list either because I already liked the author’s other work (Hawke, Gabriel, Cartwright) or because I’d come across a glowing review while casually researching how authors had handled issues of power exchange within context of gender relations. Which sounds like a really pretentious way to approach what’s basically a bunch of erotica-romance with strong bdsm themes, but I never said I wasn’t intellectual, just that I’m not elitist.
(How can I be? Some of this stuff is trash, I’m telling ya, with usual ymmv-caveats applying.)
CARTWRIGHT Sierra - Unbound Commitment | Signed, Sealed and Delivered [MF]
GABRIEL Reese - His Submissive [MF]
HAWKE Morgan - Fallen Star | Victorious Star [MFM]
KADE Cyna - Mastering Marissa [MF]
BARRON Melinda - Sweet Awakening [MFM]
LAURENSTON Shelly - Pack Challenge | Go Fetch | Here Kitty Kitty [MF]
These are all works that work from the same basic playlist: newbie and/or unaware female introduced to d/s and/or s/m by one or more dominant (alpha-seme) males. Some of the stories don’t just walk the border of kidnap-seduce fantasies but fall right over into it (Fallen Star, Victorious Star, Mastering Marissa), some do a bit more coaxing first (Sweet Awakening, Satyr’s Myst), some have a female character who’s curious if ignorant (Unbound Commitment, Signed Sealed & Delivered). Only one has a newbie-female who truly puts up a fight of any worth (His Submissive). Well, Laurenston’s novels are the only ones not focusing explicitly on a power exchange, but I included hers for a reason, and I’ll get to that in a bit. First, the thoughts jumbling in my head about the works by the first five authors listed.
Hawke’s Fallen Star has its good moments, and its oh-so-stereotyped SFF-bondage-wetdream moments, but it was a quick read with some nice characterization points that I tucked away in my head to remember. What’s became more important (as I read other works and had something to compare) was that this might be one of the few in which the female-character’s essential traits are not reduced to dust and wiped away to reveal brand!spanking!new all-submissive all-the-time female drone. Pun possibly intended. For instance:
...the good news was that the room was so exposed [Fallon] could tell in a glance that no one else was in it.If you’re wondering why I sometimes willingly read tripe, or trash, or whatever else you want to call it (or just easy-on-the-brain, purely-for-prurient-fun, whatever) -- it’s because you never know when an author has some tiny detail that just works. A lot of the rest of Fallen Star -- like its semi-sequel, Victorious Star -- bug the crap out of me, in a significant aspect of its worldbuilding. But that doesn’t change that this single scene makes me happy, because it’s something most authors wouldn’t think about, wouldn’t note, and sure wouldn’t take time on. But anyway.
The bed she occupied appeared to be set in a small alcove and was the darkest part of the room, but it was far too open and exposed for comfort. Worse still, the whole setup led in a clear straight path to the bed. Anyone entering the room would come straight there.
If she was going to get some decent sleep, she needed to find someplace a lot more secure, higher up, and dark. Her gaze drifted to the doors in the wall.
[...next scene truncated for main point ]
Somebody else cursed. It sounded like Khan. “I know she’s in here ... somewhere.” It was Khan, and he was seriously annoyed.
Sobehk chuckled. “My guess is that she’s tucked into the smallest, darkest, highest place in here.”
“Such as?”
“Try there.”
The wardrobe’s doors were pulled open. The clothes below her were shifted about. “She’s not in here.” Khan’s voice showed clear annoyance.
“Try looking up, not down.”
What gets me about Hawke’s work, in the worldbuilding? Same thing that gets me about a lot of the SFF-influenced erotica/romance: the authors have taken something that’s a classic stereotype in romance -- that of luuurve at first sight -- and warped, manipulated, reconstructed it into something even more controlling. Throw in any sort of S/m, D/s, elements, and I’ve yet to read a book where the mingling of these storylines didn’t creep me out, if not made me want to retch.
For instance, from a straight-up contemporary romance with a D/s plotline, here’s a bit from the opening pages of Cartwrights’ Signed, Sealed and Delivered. Basically, protagonist (Alana) has flown from the US to London to meet some guy who she thinks will finally show her the hawt awesomeness that is submission, yada yada yada. Okay, wiling victim, which is one step up from unwilling, certainly, but still. Here, read:
With infinite patience, and without a scowl forming between his brows, the man repeated the order.Excuse me? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, or bang my head on the desk. I mean, come on. There’s fantasy, and then there’s “that’s not a turn-on, not unless your audience is limited only to those women who have enough money to toss around that they’d see such sacrifice as some kind of foreplay.”
“Are you mad? Do you have any idea how much I paid for this bag?” Ever since she’d been old enough to lust over fashion magazines, she’d wanted a purse that department stores kept safely locked in a glass case. Or, even better, one from a fashionable little store that discretely tucked price tags inside the bag. Alana had spent days bidding on this particular purse on an internet auction site. She’d wondered if her credit card would melt from the frenzy. “You’re kidding me, right? Tell me this is a bad joke.”
He said nothing.
Men.
Another drop of water dripped from his slicker onto the floor.
Then she realised this was the first test. Being bound and flogged was one thing. Throwing away a purse that cost a month’s salary was another, entirely.
With a sigh, she walked over to the nearest rubbish bin and tossed in her handbag. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it still contained her journal, the book she was quite enjoying, and worse, her toiletries, including her favourite tube of mascara.
I can’t turn my brain off: I read the lines, “Throwing away a purse that cost a month’s salary was another, entirely” and I think, hell yeah, it sure as fuck is. (And I hit the boiling point at the next paragraph, of the journal being included in the to-be-dumped pile -- it’s damn, damn hard to read that, as a writer, and not feel sudden irrational, protective rage, I confess.) See, this is the thing, what’s going on in my reaction, that I can’t turn off. Women get discounted enough in the real world, and more often than not, really do have to work twice as hard as the men around them to get half as much respect, and the money we earn is -- like it is for anyone, true -- a huge, huge element of self-respect.
Whether or not we realize it consciously, being able to pay your own bills and stand on your own, is empowering; to purchase something outrageously expensive isn’t necessarily (only) a fashion statement, it’s a signal that you’re doing well. We may purchase it because we like it, want it, need it, or think it looks good on us, but a less-admitted part of that is also because in doing so, we’re saying to some invisible audience: we’re buying this because we can. It is a clear fruit of our labor.
So to me, to have a story open up where a man -- regardless of whatever sexual turn-on might come later as a reward -- for that man to say, in effect: ditch those things that exist as status symbols of your success, your hard-earned self-rewards... Y’know, not just a turn-on for me. More like a big freaking turn-off. I don’t freaking care if it were god himself standing there, I’d be like: you know what? No way, asshole. Do not tell me to throw away the external, because I won’t, no more than I will pitch the internal.
That may seem like an overreaction, but note that the character herself spends more than just a few words describing the sacrifice made to achieve this external fruit of her labor. There are plenty of things we have, and purchase, which indicate success, but sometimes a single item can become the symbol of all the rest: it's our own personal synecdoche. Which is probably why my hackles go up like hell from that scene, because I find myself so quickly relating to the character's position and unable to stop myself from drawing a bead from removing the symbolic (this represents my autonomy) to the actual (next, you'll tell me to quit my job?).
Which may just be me, but hey.
(Honestly, my reaction might have been completely different if the guy had taken all of it, saying, “you won’t be needing this,” and later we find out the protagonist is one of those folks who bolsters herself with things she can’t afford to cover up some kind of insecurity. Maybe even, at the end, to discover she respects herself as a worthwhile, hard-working person of integrity even without the extra trappings. But the setup as presented? Curdles me. Totally.)
Barron’s Sweet Awakening and Gabriel’s His Submissive also play on these themes, where the woman willingly turns over control of her self-respect, into another’s hands. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware that D/s (and its cousin S/m) have a lot more going on than just the hollywood-ized version of humiliation and/or ultra-control. The point I’m making is that in the realms of fiction, this control is most often not presented as a conscious or willing choice -- which is possibly the only way in which the excerpt above does get it right (in that the protagonist is not coerced by any means but chooses to pitch the stuff on her own).
In most other d/s-themed stories, though, the real-world reluctance to turn over all control, versus the fantasy/fiction requirement of control-loss, means the author plays the old romance game of love at first sight, although in this case it’s usually lust-at-first-sight. Hell, I’d go so far as to say, overwhelming-uncontrollable-lust-at-first-sight. As in, the woman is reduced to near-helplessness in the face of her own omg!total!lust when she’s facing the luuuuust interest: can’t think, can’t walk across the room, can’t defend herself, oh, woe. Etc, etc.
Now, mix these into the world of SFF, and you get stories like Kade’s Mastering Marissa, which is really nothing more than a woman-written version of Gor, and it’s just about as much fun to read. That is to say, not much after the first ten pages or so: the bloom is off that rose pretty damn fast. A woman travels to a distant planet to meet her natural father for the first time, and ends up getting trapped/tricked by a political rival of her father’s; the rival not only kidnaps her but forces/tricks a series of bonds on her that render her tied to him. Permanently.
Y’know, it’s bad enough when we talk about non-consensual sex, which just isn’t a turn-on for me at all. Not even one iota. But when an author uses SFF tropes -- magic, strange sciences, whatever -- to justify what really amounts to a type of mind-control, it turns my stomach. What we have here is basically not just someone who’s being raped, but is additionally being made to enjoy it. In the case of Mastering Marissa, or at least the first chapter or three I could stomach before violently shutting the story, this forced-sex + forced-lust occurs even as the protagonist is still able, intellectually, to know that she finds the situation humiliating, demeaning, and not one she’d choose even in a lifetime of blue moons.
But, of course, in the end (or so I assume, given the other stories I’ve read, bleah), the physical wins out, the lust takes over, and eventually you’ve got a female character who says, “well, it just feels so good, and he’s been pretty nice to me otherwise, so hey, this isn’t so bad.”
Am I the only one who reads SFF-blend stories like this and thinks: Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?
The one true exception to this list is (unexpectedly) Cartwright’s Unbound Commitment, in which a young woman -- mostly from curiosity, maybe a bit of boredom -- manages to convince an experienced Dom that she’s an experienced sub/slave (she’s not)... and once she’s stuck in their week together, she realizes just how out of her depths she is. Although at times she’s turned on by some of what’s happening, the majority of it (during the week’s start, when she’s struggling the most) is not a turn on, but neither is it necessarily against-her-will, or really that coerced in any way.
In fact, there’s none of this “helpless against her own lust” so much as there’s “a whole lotta could-be-reverse psychology” with the Dom saying, look, you’re obviously clueless, and if you can’t take this, just leave. The good part about that (other than her stubbornness, which is rather endearing and sympathetic, if hard-headed sometimes) is that it means her actions are never outside her own control. That is, her attempts to relinquish control are attempts within her control: that’s the dichotomy of the dynamics, and what really intrigues me about them, and why I like reading how authors have handled such a complex interpersonal state.
It’s things like this, for instance, in Unbound Committment, when the protagonist is left (as far as she knows) by herself, tied to a type of padded sawhorse. Unexpectedly, the Dom asks her a question:
“Are you feeling sorry for yourself?”That really did make me snort tea. The well-grounded sass in the character, that makes her stubborn and a bit impulsive, doesn’t go away. None of this brainwashing crap.
“Only a little.”
“What do you think of your own private horse?”
“Giddy-up?”
I ping on the notion of “attempts to relinquish control being within control” because the D/s theme -- and if wrapped up in SFF, take this to its extreme -- is often an extreme in its own right of the crap you can read in a certain style of contemporary romance. The kind I have in mind is one where the female protagonist starts out the story a bit acerbic, maybe kinda prickly thanks to past heartbreak, self-protective even, strong, possibly witty and even scathing, just your basic all-kinds-of-fun character with a strong mind and strong will and the guts to say it. Then she falls in luuuurve, and whammo, the author hits her with the stupid-bat.
Suddenly we have mopey-girl, languishing from TSTL misunderstandings, pining away in the bad and ridiculously euphoric in the good. Hello, personality switch, much? It’s like the message is: if you’re a woman with a brain and a mouth, that’s just because you’ve not yet fallen in luuuurve with Mr Right. Once you do, you become the usual spineless simpering man-crazy female, because of course that mouth was just a ridiculously transparent attempt to protect yourself, silly you, think how much time you’ve wasted using that mouth to be, well, mouthy, when you could’ve been baking cookies?
I exaggerate, but not by much. I’ve read my share of contemporary chick-fic quasi-romance where the protagonist got a sudden personality transplant for the worse, straightaway upon meeting Mr Right. I’d be wiling to argue that most of those novelists don’t intend to shove home that message, but look, it’s in a lot of the texts. A steadfast refusal to deconstruct -- or just no interest in thinking about what a storyline is really saying -- and you end up with the same stupid mid-story segue, over and over. Put down the manuscript and give it some thought, people!
There’s a second part of what bothers me in the SFF-blend, too, which is the fact that the helplessness caused by magical-spell-causing-luuurve (or luuuust), or the crazy-ass science that designates this person is your One Twu Wuv, isn’t balanced. That is, if the author is going to undermine a character’s autonomy by introducing an extreme like overcome-by-luuurve, then what you’re left with is really a long and involved series of essentially nonconsensual sex scenes unless the protagonist being sexxed up is also able to defend herself. See, that’s the crucial aspect to the entire D/s dynamic, dichotomy, that can make it such an intriguing interpersonal study: that to relinquish control requires having control in the first place. Sadly, it’s also what authors seem to discard right off the bat, if they even consider it in the first place.
If, however, the female protagonist is quite capable of beating the crap out of anyone who touches her without her permission, of defending herself, or just plain being able to say “No, that’s enough,” and be able to back it up, then -- and only then -- does any sort of surrender actually mean something. Otherwise, it’s a weak-willed, or weak-limbed, person surrendering what wasn’t really much of a hold-out in the first place. And if this is a world where someone can be magically forced into some kind of luuurve-bond, why can’t it be a world where a woman could level a guy with a single punch if she so chooses?
Granted, all of these stories (and the rest of their ilk, based on reading the genre) emphasize over and over that the guy, y’know, really respects her, and everything he’s doing is for her pleasure, blah blah blah. Okay, so it’s humiliating to walk around without clothes on, but it’s not actually painful and hey, him requiring she do that is just how he shows that he thinks she’s, uh, marvelous. Right?
...Except if you ask me, it’s totally undermined by the fact that it doesn’t freaking matter whether or not she agrees: the author doesn’t actually grant her the ability or the strength or the wits to actually have any real choice in the matter. Saying yes and having to do action A versus saying no and being forced, compelled, overwhelmed by lust, whatever, into doing action A anyway... I just ain’t seeing that as much of a real choice. She doesn’t have any real power in the first place. No power, then where’s the power exchange?
Now, on the other hand, if it’s a matter that both the protagonist and the love interest are fully aware that if she so chose she could wipe the floor with him and not even break a sweat... Then, yes, in that case, she does hold the power such that she would have something to relinquish. Besides, if he pisses her off, treats her without respect, then she could just kick his ass and tell him to get lost -- and he would know it, too. Even if the scene plays out the exact same way, I’m much more inclined to believe good intentions on the part of an otherwise seemingly humiliating scene if I know going in that the woman really does have the self-control (over or against that stupid love-bind lust-compel magic/science), or she has the physical power, or some other power, that levels the playing field... because I can then say, and see, that the love interest’s actions happen solely at the protagonist’s discretion. There is no longer rape, because the victim is willing -- if not to help out, at least to hold her negation in abeyance for a time.
Which is why Shelly Laurenston is my Sekret Ebook Girlfriend.
In Pack Challenge, the first book of the series (and yes, I should admit, these are shapeshifter-stories, werecats, werewolves, etc, but for this author I make very big exception!) -- we meet Sara, who has an uncanny amount of strength, enough that when she says no and shoves someone backwards, his head’s going through the wall if she exerts just a minimal effort. Her guy gets rough, and gets pushy, but it’s not a non-con because she’s well capable of handing back anything and dishing out even more.
Plus, Laurenston writes a prickly dynamic so freaking well it just makes me all squirmy, because there are good parts about the story but the best damn part is the characters, hands-down. I mean, sure, any old book with a romantic-subplot (or as the main plot) is -- more often than not -- going to throw the Alpha Male at you. But I have to say, Laurenston is possibly one of the first to throw an Alpha Female right back atcha. From one of the earliest conversations between Sara and Mr. Ill-Tempered, aka Zach:
Zach glanced out the window to what had to be the quietest town he’d ever been in. “Big gang problem around here? Lots of cow jacking?”Oh, and she shoots, all of them do actually, and if you have an issue with women knowing how to handle guns, more than capable at using them, let alone using them quite easily, these may not be the books for you.
“We have all sorts pass through our little town, thank you very much. Bikers. Cowboys. The always dangerous rodeo clowns.”
“Rodeo clowns?”
“Don’t ask.”
Zach shrugged. “I don’t want to know.”
“Any other condescending questions about my town?”
“Oh, I’m not being condescending. I’m very interested in your tiny little town, with its tiny little people. I bet you guys even have a movie theater.”
Sara barked out a laugh. “You certainly are a charmer.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“By who? Your mother?”
“She does adore her son.” He looked out the window again. “I thought there’d be desert. Coyotes. Clint Eastwood.”
“You’re in Hill Country. We have rivers, canyons and forests. You want desert, you need to hit the Panhandle.”
Zach leaned across the counter and smiled at her. “You’ll have to show me around some time.”
“I have been known to go off alone with strange bikers,” she responded sarcastically. “It’s a thing I do. Like eating glass.”
My favorite example? The evening Sara comes home after a few days of strange people making threatening moves, being followed on the road a few times, and generally enough crap going on to have her distrustful of potential badness.
An extremely expensive car pulled up to the front of her house and four men got out. All well-built and all well-dressed. Okay. The guy [who'd threatened her earlier that day] seemed to have brothers. Not a problem. The four men began to head toward the house, but she pumped the weapon once and aimed at the first one she saw. They stopped moving. They may have even stopped breathing.Yes, they do leave. And I cheered.
“You’re trespassing. Get off my property.”
The one she had her weapon aimed at decided he would charm her. She saw it in the way his eyes half closed and his mouth held a small smile. He acted like he already owned her ass. But when he opened his mouth to speak, Sara shot the ground at his feet. All four men stumbled back.
“Welcome to Texas, gentlemen. Now get the fuck off my property!”
And perhaps just as importantly, Sara doesn’t lose her personality once she hooks up with Zach; even more valuable to me, Laurenston doesn’t fall for the usual were-type stories where discovery is Oh So Dramatic and renders Pages of Wangst and Crap You’re A Wolf hysteria. Sara remains the pragmatic, slightly crazy, off-beat character she’s been through the entire story. Like, in grilling Mr Ill-Tempered, Zach, about shapeshifters. Zach is talking about some of the other strangers coming through Sara’s small town.
”He’s Pride.” [Zach speaking]Her combination of sarcasm and her willingness -- and just as much, her ability -- to defend herself and take no crap means that when Zach goes Alpha-ey on her, she quite easily goes Alpha-ey on him right back. Thus, when she does not go Alpha-ey on him, it’s not because she’s compelled or out-of-control or helpless. It’s an active choice -- so when they get together, even with their ongoing jabbing, it works. It’s not a “they’re together because the author said so” but “they’re together because anyone else would probably kill them inside of 24 hours.”
“You mean proud.”
There was that sigh again. “I mean he’s Pride.” That stated through gritted teeth.
“Pride? Lions have prides.”
“Yup.”
Sara spun around. “There are lions, too?”
Patient Zach made an entrance. “Yes. And tigers. And mountain lions. There’s an array of shifters.”
“Bunnies?”
Sara watched him swallow. “No bunnies,” he bit out. Much more and he’d grind his teeth into dust. “Think predators. Our ancestors became one with the predators. Bunnies are low on the food chain.”
“Sharks?”
“What?”
“Don’t get huffy. They’re the ultimate killing machine.”
Or something like that. The second book, Go Fetch, focuses on Sarah’s friend Miki, and while Miki doesn’t have Sara’s physical strength, she is brilliant. The shortest of the three friends at 5’4”, MIki is a curvy young black woman, and a former hacker who suffered through two years of house arrest sans computer or phone, who cooks stuff up that has the American Govt’s shadier sides interested in having her develop more of the stuff, who’s collected three Master’s and working on a Doctorate because hey, it seemed like a fun thing to do... well, Miki may not be able to pound someone’s head into the wall, but she can run circles around any brain out there, and by that extent for any trouble she gets into, she can get out of twice as fast. We’re talking totally against type, if you think about it.
But that’s not to say she doesn’t have flaws. For starters, she’s utterly convinced that guys = unplanned pregnancy = being abandoned, having been raised by a single mother whose paramour had ditched her upon pregnancy. Miki’s not going to make that mistake. So when she meets Conall, who just falls for her immediately, she has no idea what to do (any more than he does, really).
And again with the absolute flip-around of power dynamics, how about this for introducing a so-called Alpha Male...
Another male [entered the bike shop]. This one blond and perhaps a little closer to [Sara’s] age. He was as big as a house, though. Like a blond polar bear. All muscle and strength. He actually reminded Sara of the Vikings from one of Miki’s computer games. All he needed was that horned helmet. He greeted a few of the females but mostly with a pat on the shoulder or a nod. But when he saw Miki it was like someone hit him over the head with a rock. He looked stunned. He walked into the wall.I think the other reason that paragraph amuses me so much has something to do with the cadence of it. Read it out loud, and maybe you'll see what I mean. I can't exactly put my finger on it; Laurenston is more than capable of a well-crafted sentence, and these near-fragments aren't truly indicative of her overall sturdy descriptive passages -- but in this case, it just works. I think it's the basic choppiness, somehow, narrowing down to the final punchline. On top of that, as you read the three books, you'll find that each character not only has a distinctive voice in the dialogue, but that this distinctive voice also colors any narration through their POV. It's subtle, but it's very well done. And sadly, such attention is also quite rare.
Anyway, the next time Mr Viking meets up with Miki, she’s not much better herself. He orders a cup of coffee, and she turns around and promptly runs straight into the back counter. They’re both a bit thrown by the attraction -- come on, massive viking-looking guy who’s okay-smart and short black chick who’s freaking brilliant, not a regular combination... plus, Miki has no problem playing with fire, which often revolves around saying what everyone else is thinking, and not worrying about the consequences.
For instance, after learning -- well, actually after Miki figures it out and then the three friends learn it’s true -- that the visiting group of bikers are actually shapeshifter wolves, they and the Pack meet up at a party-rave hosted by the shapeshifters.
Miki held up a tennis ball, looked at the Pack, and tossed it out into the forest away from the ongoing rave. They all watched it go, then they turned back to Miki.Then we get several pages of storyline continuing, with this almost throwaway-level bit near the end. Zach welcomes the three friends, but adds in a request to Miki that she not ask anyone to go fetch again. She plays innocent (which by now is a clear sign she’s up to something else already), and then:
“Okay. Go—”
Sara and Angelina slapped their hands over Miki’s mouth before the word “fetch” could come out of it.
They pulled her over to one of the food tables.
“Are you out of your ever-loving mind? Everyone here but us is [a wolf],” Angelina snarled. “And after seeing them in action I’d rather not fuck with them!”
Miki gave that innocent smile. “It was just a little experiment.”
[Miki] turned to walk away but crashed into her own personal shapeshifting stalker.Conall is everything you’d expect to be for a proper Alpha... but not. He’s a goofy guy trapped in the body of an Alpha. If anything, in their relationship, it’s Miki who’s the Alpha, but that doesn’t mean Laurenston just flipped the power dynamic around so Miki’s always on top. They’re equals, equally goofy in their own ways, smart about what they know well, and whacked about what they fear, or misunderstand. Where Sara and Zach jab at each other, Miki and Conall both seem to be almost disbelieving at the other person’s apparent insanity in finding the other attractive. Who me?, they both seem to be saying, but with a kind of baffled reaction instead of angsty or self-hating.
“Hey, Miki.” Conall smiled. “I think you dropped this.” He handed Miki the tennis ball.
“Dude!” Zach barked.
“What?”
Zach gave a brutal snort of disgust and walked away.
What saves Miki from being her own special Mary Sue is that Laurenston seems to be aware that sometimes, what makes a character imperfect is not automatically obvious. In fact, sometimes (especially in romantic plotlines) the flaws are least expected and often those things that would make us less attractive. For a genre in which "being hawt / badass / cool" (like urban fantasy) or "attractive / sexy" like romance and romance-blends, it's rare to find an author willing to make a character not just imperfect... how to put it. I guess, to point out where the character isn't that good at something, in a way that can make you simultaneously laugh at the person's ridiculousness while maybe cringing a little bit because you've always wondered if you look the same to others, yourself.
For instance, this scene at the party, where Zach and Conall are watching the three women dance.
Sara didn’t dance. Her damaged leg prevented that. But she moved really well. Nothing elaborate or fancy, and her moves weren’t exactly “stripper-hot”, which he and Conall learned to appreciate over the years. ...I guess maybe it's the willingness to let other characters ridicule a character for whom we may have sympathy? That might be part of it, too. But it's not made into a character flaw in the sense of "she who blurts out first thought" in opening chapters (and it's emphasized that she does on a regular basis) then becomes a plot-point down the road. Miki's dancing, or lack of it, isn't a plot point in the least; it's just something she, uh, doesn't do very well. Or do well at all.
Tragically, Conall was not fairing so well. “My. God. She is the worst dancer I’ve ever seen.”
Zach had forgotten there was anyone else at the rave until Conall spoke. He glanced over and took in Miki’s idea of dancing. It was kind of sad…and frightening. Yet clearly she was having a good time.
“But,” Conall added, “her ass looks great in those shorts.”
That brings us to the third book, Here Kitty Kitty, which tells the story of the last of the three good friends. Angelina is a leggy woman of Hispanic descent with all the right curves. She’s not physically strong like Sarah, and she’s not necessarily brilliant like Miki, but she does have a keen fashion sense -- oh, and a completely wild temper. She’s also one whose strength is that she’s just completely freaking unpredictable. I mean, how's this for a character introduction (in the first book):
Angelina, however, was busy putting on lip gloss while staring into a mirror customers used to try on sunglasses. Angie was one woman who didn’t let herself get worked up over stuff she couldn’t control. Although that rather Zen-like philosophy did take years of court-ordered therapy to obtain.And it's a complete throwaway line, too, which delights me. Okay, yeah, I have a weakness for authors being clever without having to point it out to me.
When Angie's story opens, she’s leaving her clothing shop for the evening, when she’s approached by a not-meaning-well shifter that Angie doesn’t recognize. A threatening move (remember this is after two books of shapeshifters doing major damage, or at least trying), and Angie clocks the woman -- only to get jumped by two more shifters. When she wakes, she’s in a strange man’s bedroom, wearing nothing, and with no idea how she got there. Normally, I’d be expecting either the “omg, luuurve at first sight” scenario, or alternately the “helpless woman learns of threat against her that requires she cling to big strong he-man” (requiring mild hysteria, soon followed by luuurve etc). But this is Laurenston, so even though Angie might not have the muscles or the brains, she’s not helpless.
Just as the strange (if sinfully good-looking) man appears to be doing the let-me-comfort-you preface, she moans that she thinks she’s going to be sick. Well, that kills the mood. And so...
He held her with one arm while he lifted the toilet seat cover and the toilet seat. Kneeling down again, he brought her with him, making sure her head hovered over the toilet.Yeah. I can totally get behind that.
“It’s going to be okay, sugar. Just relax.”
Moaning, she gripped the sides of the toilet and leaned forward. He was about to reach around and pull her hair off her face, when her head swung back, slamming into his nose. His brothers had broken his nose years ago, but this bitch literally knocked it out of joint. He heard the bone pop.
“Goddammit!”
Releasing her, he fell back to the floor.
He looked up in time to see her smoothly get to her feet, the sheet sliding off that sweet, sweet body, leaving her naked and oh so beautiful. With a coldness he’d never seen on a human not born cat, she turned and yanked the top of the toilet tank off.
“Wait—” was the last thing he said before she brought the hard, heavy porcelain down on his head.
If I had my way, I’d probably end up repeating nearly every other scene from all three books. Not a single bit of helplessness -- except as each protagonist choose to surrender control, however temporarily -- and even when seemingly outranked, all three women were smart enough, strong enough, or quick enough to believably turn the tables to be in their favor, at least enough that I never felt as though they were beaten down and liked it, or some such stupid “helpess againt hormones” crap. There is a power exchange (though not as formalized as the more d/s-themed works), and there is the implication that Laurenston’s world contains some kind of One Twu Wuv action -- but it’s not a compulsion, it’s not something created to render the female half gleefully, almost drug-addict like, sinking into mindless joy for something that in her right mind would be considered repulsive. Every single relationship makes sense, and every single relationship is played on an level field -- even if it requires a toilet-lid or two to get it there.
I could go on, but this has rambled enough, must be to bed at some point. Ugh.
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Date: 9 Sep 2008 11:33 am (UTC)Now, I need to go get the rest of the Pack books. YAY!
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Date: 9 Sep 2008 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Sep 2008 08:10 pm (UTC)The pack series is definitely, definitely worth it, though!
OMG!
Date: 27 Sep 2008 09:15 pm (UTC)"There are no bunny shifters!"
Shaking her head she accused, "You're a bunny bigot."
*dies*
On a side note, have you read ony of the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon? I think you would enjoy "Dance with the Devil" which is the fourth book...you may need to read the third book, which is "Night Embrace" since that's when the character is first introduced...but the main character, Zarek, is a character I think you would really like, especially compared with the characters in "Pack Challenge". Lots of attitude, and a female lead character that gives attitude back.
Anyways, I'm off to go purchase the other two "Pack" books in ebook format because I simply cannot wait for them to come out in print. Thanks for the recommendations!! ^_^