Feminism with a Kink: Teresa Noelle Roberts' DRIVE and Tamsen Parker's DUE SOUTH

Hearing Teresa Noelle Roberts and Tamsen Parker speak at February's meeting of the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America on how to use kink to develop a romance arc reminded me that I hadn't read either of their recent releases. And so I spent a few evenings this week most pleasantly entertained by two erotic romances that use kink not only to titillate readers, but also to advance feminist ideals.

Roberts' Drive, the first book in her Cougars, Cars and Kink series, spins a romantic suspense story about a forty five-year-old recent widow who finds herself in the midst of car chases, break-ins, and terrorist plots after she discovers her husband's high-tech business focused not just on the industrial and consumer markets, but on defense work for the government. The suspense plot wasn't what grabbed my interest, though; instead, it was the book's parallel story about a middle aged woman who had once enjoyed walking on the kinky side but who had suppressed those desires for the sake of her marriage. And who rediscovers her pleasure in being sexually submissive with a hot guy fifteen years her junior. So many romances, even erotic ones, take it for granted that the natural heterosexual pair is an older man with a younger woman. The gap between the ages of said heterosexual pair has narrowed over the years, but the rarity of older women paired with younger men in romance indicates that the general principle is still alive and well in the genre.

Suzanne Mayhew had initially been attracted to her husband, Frank, because he seemed in control, an adult while she was still floundering, figuring out her life. But Frank's controlling nature did not extend to the bedroom ("If the world ever needed proof that control freak and Dom are two different traits..." [Kindle Loc 53]). Suzanne was on the verge of getting a divorce when Frank wrapped one of the classic cars he seemed to care about far more than his wife around a tree.

Eight months after Frank's death, Suzanne is finally ready to move on with her life. Part of that moving on includes confiding to her old college friend, Janice, a Domme in Boston's kink community, that Suzanne misses "the spanky side of sex" (19). And Janice, good friend that she is, arranges for one of her Dom friends to go and check out the 1965 Mustang, Frank's favorite classic car, that Suzanne is putting up for sale. That neither Suzanne nor Neil, Janice's thirty-year-old friend, has any idea that they've been set up only adds to the excitement of their flirty meeting.

Suzanne has no hangups about a short term fling with younger guy Neil, and for his part, Neil has a decided preference for older women: "Older women were more confident, as a rule, more in touch with their own sexual needs and less likely to use the submissive role as an excuse to avoid responsibility" (97). But when things start to get really intense really fast, Suzanne ends up backing off. Only when Neil experiences his own personal crisis, after Suzanne's have all been resolved, can Suzanne shrug off her worries about their age difference and realize what she wants for herself, and from Neil.

I'm looking forward to reading future installments of this unusual series, which promise more romance and thrills for other members of Janice's Kinky Cougars support group. Younger men, bring 'em on!

Parker's Due South, the fifth book in her Compass series, features two protagonists who aren't nearly as sure about their sexual desires as Suzanne and Neil are. Lucy Miller, assistant to hard-driving boss India Burke (see books 1 & 2 in the series) and Evans, India's second in command, are about as awkward and deferential as two people can be. As Lucy describes them, "A flutter of 'sorrys' follows because both of us could probably get Canadian or British citizenship based solely on the amount of apologizing we do" (56). Evans has been nursing a crush on Lucy for years, but has never acted on it, not only because fraternization between employees is strictly forbidden by the company handbook, but also because "I can barely speak a sentence to women outside of a work context because I don't want to impose, and I feel the urge to apologize just for existing" (115). As for Lucy, she likes Evans, but has never really thought of him in any romantic, never mind sexual, way. As unlikely a pair of lovers as one is likely to find in romance today.

And it takes something completely unexpected to bring them together: accidentally observing their tough-as-nails boss engaging in BDSM sex with her husband at the office. And taking the submissive, rather than the dominant, role. While watching India's husband hit her with a belt kills Lucy's tiny crush on him, watching the two engage in hot sex turns her on—as does the sight of Evans' own arousal. And as soon as India and her husband leave, Evans' mouth comes crashing down on hers, not in any mild, tentative way, as his affect might suggest, but "demanding, passionate...hungry. Like he wants to devour me" (367). And Lucy isn't at all reluctant to be devoured.

But Evans, being Evans, immediately apologizes for his unacceptable behavior and flees. But the evening has even more embarrassing moments in store for them both until they begin to see a way out of their predicament:

    "What if you... weren't you?"
     He starts, but then it seems as though the sun comes up and shines on his face. "You mean like pretend?"
     "Yeah. Pretend. Like we could still be Lucy and Evans, but braver."
     "Bolder."
     My breath speeds up, and I bite my lip. "Yeah. Sexier." (479)

Even under the guise of pretend, though, Lucy, who grew up in a conservative family, has difficulty bridging the gap between what she wants in her head and actually speaking her desires aloud:

But I can't quite get the words from my brain to my mouth. They keep getting hung up on everything I've been told my whole life. That sex is only appropriate inside the bonds of marriage and I need to set a good example because girls have more self-control than boys." (509).

Lucy knows, now, as an adult, that her family and her church's teachings are misogynistic. But still, it's difficult to keep those teachings, those voices, out of her head. It takes real work, feminist work, to allow herself to believe her desires are not bad, that "it's okay to want sex, to like it, to enjoy my body and be proud that men find me attractive. It's okay to be a sexual creature" (523). But with Evans, someone equally as diffident, ready to combine bold and sexy with shy and awkward, Lucy finds the courage to be an active participant in her own sex life.

But conquering your inner slut-shamer isn't a one-time affair; the old familiar feelings of shame and embarrassment don't disappear overnight. With an awkward, but equally eager partner, though, Lucy can get in a lot of practice reciting her sex-positive mantras and laying down new patterns in her brain. Patterns that say "yes" to pleasure—even if said pleasure includes a touch of kinky exhibitionism—and "no" to misogynistic shame.


Photo credits:
Red Mustang: Mustangattitude.com
Office spies: Metro

Teresa Noelle Roberts

Drive

Cougars, Cars and Kink

Samhain, 2016

Tamsen Parker

Due South

Compass series

indie-published

What's Missing from BDSM Romance?

At February's monthly meeting of the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America, Tamsen Parker and Teresa Noelle Roberts, two talented members of the chapter, gave a fascinating workshop on "How to Throw a Kink into your Romantic Arc." Focusing not on the whips and chains aspects of kinky romance, but instead on its psychological and emotional aspects, Parker and Roberts talked about what an author who wishes to write kinky characters convincingly needs to know about the world of BDSM and kink, explained some of their pet peeves about erotic romances that portray kink less than convincingly, and explored how to write about specific kinks when you yourself don't find said kink sexy. I don't write kinky romance myself, but I do read it, and I found their presentation both informative and thought-provoking.

From a gender standpoint, one comment that Parker made really stood out for me. Masochism, she noted, can come in two different flavors. Some masochists enjoy pain, and experience it as pleasure: a "a pain slut." Others, however, don't like pain in and of itself, but instead "enjoying taking it for their partner." For this latter type of masochist, pain is painful, not pleasurable. But the pain is worth it, for the pleasure it gives the partner to inflict it, and the pleasure it gives the receiver to offer that pleasure to a partner.

In my own BDSM reading, I've often noticed a difference in the depiction of female submissives and male submissives, and Parker's comment clarified for me just what that difference was. Female submissives in BDSM romances are far more often depicted in the first masochism category, people who enjoy pain, people who take pleasure from the pain itself. In contrast, male submissives more typically fall into the second category, people who "take pain" for the pleasure of a partner. Why?

Submission as strength

At the end of the workshop, I asked Parker about the gendered portrayal of masochism in erotic romance, and whether she thought it accurately reflected real-life BDSM practice. Were actual female masochists more often pain sluts, and male masochists who enjoyed pain in and of itself far less common? Or was this a reflection of historically gendered romance tropes, romance tropes that insisted that men and masculinity be depicted as strong and empowered?

I didn't write down her exact response, but I think that our conclusions were similar: both romance tropes and larger social norms about gender make it not as commercially viable to portray masochistic male characters who enjoy being submissive, who enjoy pain, who enjoy being humiliated. Especially if their Dom is a woman. If an erotic writer wants to appeal to a wider market, aka a market that includes non-kinky readers as well as readers involved in the kink scene or lifestyle, that writer cannot stray too far from the gender expectations of that wider audience. The one bright spot: Parker did say that she thought while a writer who crafted stories with masochistic men of the first type might develop a smaller audience, it would likely be a more devoted one.

Many readers envision erotic romance as a space of freedom, a space where anything goes. I know I did when I first started reading it. It seems more than a little ironic, then, to discover that erotic romance may be just as gender-bound in as more traditional romance fare...


Have you read any compelling erotic romances (as opposed to erotica) with a male character who enjoys pain for its own sake, not for the sake of a female partner? Who takes pleasure in being submissive?


Photo credit:
Submission as strength: Pinterest

Kink and Commitment: Jane O'Reilly's INDECENT trilogy

With all the hype surrounding the release of the 50 Shades of Grey movie this past week, it's been hard to escape its underlying "kink is titillating, but ultimately incompatible with romantic commitment" message. Readers looking for alternatives to this stark opposition between kink and romance would do well to turn to Jane O'Reilly's recent trilogy of novellas, stories that not only celebrate the romantic possibilities of a shared interest in sexual pleasure outside the bounds of the vanilla, but do so by empowering, rather than infantilizing, their female leads.

On the surface, Indecent... Exposure's protagonist Ellie Simpson appears to be a mild-mannered, sensible photographer, content to capture the life-changing days of others on film rather than experiencing them herself. Yet the side-business she's fallen into—taking "dirty and hot and downright rude" pictures for people who want visual portraits of their erotic selves (Kindle Loc 29)—not only brings in extra cash, it also allows Ellie to indulge her own voyeuristic sexual urges. So when her best friend, Amber, asks Ellie to take pictures of Amber blowing off a guy so she can send them as revenge to the boyfriend who dumped her, Ellie's totally on board.

Yet when said guy turns out to be Ellie's seemingly mild-mannered accountant, the man she's been secretly crushing on for the past three years, Ellie vows to stop "living vicariously through the sex lives of other people. I need this to stop being my sex life, and I need to get one of my own" (72). Might creating a sex life of her own not require Ellie to give up her voyeuristic tendencies, but instead, to share them with another? Someone just as good at hiding his own kinky desires as she is herself?

Ellie's friend Amber, who at the end of Exposure had switched from exacting revenge on her ex to engaging in consensual group sex with him and his new partner, becomes the narrator of the trilogy's second novella, Indecent... Proposal. Six months into their three-way affair, Amber's ex and his new girlfriend are getting married, leaving Amber feeling more than a little left out, "an accessory to their desire, like a toy they liked to use in their games" (998). Determined to prove that "while my heart might be broken, my pussy certainly wasn't," bridesmaid Amber flirts with a fellow wedding guest and pulls him into an empty room for a quick fuck mid-reception. When Ellie's judgmental brother Scott Smithson walks in on them post-orgasm, half-naked and up against a wall, Amber refuses to let his obvious contempt shame her. No, Amber's far more interested in the surprising fact that stodgy Scott can't seem to stop staring at her exposed breasts. And that Scott thinks Amber should have asked someone she knew, someone she could trust, to ease her sexual itch, not a total stranger. Someone, maybe, like him.

Such a set-up implies a "taming-of-the-female-rake" story will follow, yet O'Reilly refuses to buy into such a female-sexuality-squashing trope. Instead, she spins a tale of a woman who thinks of herself as the queen of casual sex learning to ask for what she wants—even if what she wants is a combination of both kink and commitment.

Lucas, Amber's quick wedding-day fuck in Proposal, is the male protagonist of the trilogy's third volume, Indecent... Desires. But, as in the previous two novellas, Desires's narrator is the female half of this budding relationship. Recently divorced thirty-four-year-old Meredith can't help but watch the pretty twenty-something young man in the flat opposite, the one whom she first spied sitting in front of his window casually playing with his cock. Now, every night at 9 p.m., the delicious young man comes to the window, cock in hand, well-aware he has an audience. For control-freak Meredith has started slipping notes into his letterbox, telling him exactly when and what to do. And he's doing it, much to Meredith's shock and delight.

But when the anonymous man shows up as a computer consultant at the office where Meredith works, and almost immediately picks up on Meredith's controlling vibe, Meredith's self-control starts to crack. O'Reilly openly confronts the gendered assumptions surrounding D/s:

"I knew bossy women existed," Lucas explains to Meredith. "The problem has been trying to find one.... It's hardly a topic you can bring up in the middle of a first date. 'Oh, by the way, I really want to be bent over the end of the bed and spanked, would you be up for that?' It's OK when women say it.... Then it's kind of kinky, you know? Naughty. But when a man says it, women think it's weird" (751)

O'Reilly also challenges such assumptions through her depiction of the relationship that Meredith and Lucas develop, a relationship between an older woman and a younger man built on both D/s sexual proclivities as well as on romantic connection.

These three stories work so well in novella format because each woman has a prior relationship (of sorts) with the man with whom she subsequently develops a more romantic attachment, allowing the romantic arc to develop quickly (FYI, all couples appear to be white Brits, although no real discussion of race/ethnicity appears in any of the volumes). And because each story takes place over a relatively short space of time, allowing the focus to remain on character development and romance arc rather than on drawn-out plot. And because O'Reilly has a real gift for writing not only complex characters, but scorchingly hot sex scenes, scenes made all the more compelling for the way they insist on the compatibility, rather than the opposition of, romantic commitment and sexual kink.

Jane O'Reilly's website tagline reads "Quirky romance for smart thinking women," a tag more than applicable to her Indecent novellas.  So, if you'd like a more feminist erotic reading experience than 50 Shades offers, why not give indecency a try?

Jane O'Reilly

Indecent... Exposure

Indecent... Proposal

Indecent... Desires

Carina, 2014