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Entry tags:
Shutdown, Part 2: WTF Am I Reading About Sex
CN: Anita Blake story, spite, jealousy, wtfery
So, back to this story of spite. This is where the BDSM stuff comes up. So this is long.
Micah says Anita won't believe Ellen that Anita is prettier than her. Ellen is scornful about this, because Ellen is written by Laurell K. Hamilton, who has apparently never talked to an actual woman in her life. A conversation about who is prettier is normal among women, and it is normal for each woman to say and truly believe that the other is prettier, because it is normal for women not to believe they are pretty at all. Mass media is constantly telling us that we are not pretty, and the internet has made it worse. All of my aunts are beautiful, and all of them think there is something deeply wrong with their appearance.
Anita then proceeds to give makeup and clothing advice. She says to Ellen “with the right makeup and a blue that had more jewel tones you'd look every bit as good as I do” (8). Ellen is scornful of this offer. For very good reasons: Ellen didn't ask for her advice; Anita just admitted she thinks she's prettier than Ellen; and Anita's makeup and clothing are TERRIBLE. But LKH writes this as if Ellen is angry that Anita is pretending Ellen could ever look as good as Anita.
Ellen then says Anita is “exotic”. Pffft. She's pale with dark hair and dark eyes. So am I. Admittedly, my hair is not black, and I am not some magical creature who cannot tan, but come on! According to this nonsense, all I'd need to be “exotic” is to dye my hair a slightly darker shade.
Then we get to the rage-making line of Ellen claiming every woman knows how attractive she is. This is a lie. This is a lie that LKH must know on some level is a lie. No American woman who actually has regular contact with other American women would claim this with a straight face.
The reason Anita supposedly doesn't know she's attractive, though she obviously does because she said she was in that obnoxious makeup advice? Her stepmother Judith told people that Anita wasn't hers, and that her mother was Mexican. She never said this in front of Anita. This is the Horrible and Terrible Abuse through which poor poor Anita has suffered. That's it. That's all. And Anita assumes that Judith did this because – it's terrible to contemplate – Anita wasn't blonde and tall. Oh the horror. Oh the pain. My father and his brother had to hide behind the couch waiting for the cops to come while their father beat their mother, but that is nothing to a stepparent saying she is not your biological mother. I weep bitter tears for you having to go through this, Anita, truly I do. Because it's not possible Judith was trying to show respect for your mother and boundaries by saying she was your stepmother – no, she must have had evil motivations. She is a tall blonde woman, after all. Probably with high cheekbones.
Now, I can't say anything about the horrible privations girls and women of average height go through. Nor can I say anything about the (real as opposed to LKH's bullshit) prejudice that Mexican-Americans experience. But let me tell you, internets, being a pale-skinned brunette is HORRIBLE. One's hair doesn't turn green from being in the pool a lot. We have just no one at all to look up to as every single woman lauded as a beauty by Hollywood is blonde. And we all know about those horrible jokes about brunettes being stupid that get passed around all the time, right?
This is one thing that LKH does over and over and over again. Except inasmuch as we're women, pale women with dark hair are not some sort of oppressed group. And that's what it always boils down to for LKH, plus shortness. It's not that Anita has an accent or a different culture or etc., because none of that is true. It's that she's short and especially that she has dark hair. Period. And, as seen in this story, those things along with her pasty skin make her “exotic” and get people to fall at her feet telling her how beautiful she is. We are supposed to sympathize with her suffering when what supposedly causes her suffering actually gets her only good things.
Everyone acts like Anita has just shared a story of unfathomable abuse at the hands of her evil stepmother. Ellen is shocked, shocked I say, at what vicious cruelty said stepmother inflicted on poor poor Anita. Could LKH possibly be more sheltered? I do not understand why, if she wanted Anita to have been horribly abused, she didn't make Anita actually be horribly abused.
Ellen says, “So you mean it, that you think we’re both pretty, because you don’t believe you’re beautiful?” (10) Anita nods. In other words, Anita is claiming she thinks she's only slightly prettier than Ellen and only because of Anita's hideous makeup and clothing. And Anita does not think she is beautiful. So she just told Ellen she does not think Ellen is beautiful. Ellen is engaged to one of Anita's penii. Just slap Ellen in the face, Anita. We all know you want to, and it would be less cruel. You despicable prick.
The fact that Nathaniel exists and is one of Anita's boyfriends comes up. Ellen has a hard time fathoming this. Oh please. She's a college professor. They go on about how to define everyone, and it's really boring and I don't see why everyone needs to be defined like this anyway.
Aah, now we get to the reason I am reading this dreck. Anita says she'd introduce Richard as her “Top” – capitalized – at “a more poly- or kink-friendly event” (12).
LKH, here is the first lesson.
1) All poly people are not into kink.
2) Everyone into some kind of kink is not poly.
Now, I only know #1 because, well, I notice stuff. But I know #2 from personal experience. It is entirely possible and not at all uncommon to be what is often termed “kinky” and entirely monogamous at the same time. Exhibit A: me. Exhibit B: my husband. I know it is very difficult for you to understand that every sexuality you consider non-standard does not always go together, but there it is. My husband and I are also heterosexual, even. Shocking, I know.
Richard then says he would introduce Anita “as my bottom, or submissive.” Anita objects that she is not submissive. Really? Then why did you capitalize “Top”, Anita? I've never seen that done unless it denoted dominance. Actually I've never seen that done to the word “top”, period. The word “dominant” is often capitalized to signify, well, dominance. I can't think of any other reason to capitalize “Top” except to do the same.
(I do not capitalize “dominant” because I feel it carries the implication that a dominant is a more valuable and valid person than a submissive. Also I feel there is an implicit demand that everyone acknowledge the dominant's supposed superiority, and that rankles something fierce. As I have seen people with these very attitudes, I do not want to encourage them. Besides, it just feels wrong to me.)
Anita says a bottom is someone who submits but only in the bedroom. Richard replies with something that very many critics of LKH, including me, have very often said:
Some people who are very dominant in every other part of their life are submissive in the dungeon and bedroom, and are still okay with the term, and say they have a dominant. (13)
Yes. Like me. Now, I wouldn't classify myself as very dominant generally, but I'm not exactly non-dominant either. And when talking about sexuality, I define myself as submissive. (And monogamous too, LKH.) Though I might not be submissive with a man other than my husband, if I were ever with a man other than my husband, which will not happen as I am monogamous.
Anita replies:
I’m not, because I may like to be physically dominated, but no one dominates me by will, or force of personality. To me a submissive is more than just physically dominated, it’s about giving up your will to someone else and letting them control you more completely
Anita is Humpty Dumptying terms, and I believe I know why. She thinks there is something wrong with being submissive. This is a sadly common attitude, and I've especially seen it when applied to women. That if a woman is submissive sexually, she cannot be a feminist, and she must be being abused. One article that seemed to defend women being submissive ended up with saying basically “and it's okay because she'll end up being dominant in the end.” It does not help that people like LKH and E.L. James put out garbage that shows women being abused and claiming it's BDSM.
Anita clearly thinks there is something wrong with anyone who enjoys giving control to someone else because of the force of that person's personality and/or act of will, at least if the person giving up control is a woman. In other words, LKH thinks there is something wrong with my sexuality. I do not understand why she thinks being physically dominated is okay but being psychologically dominated is not.
I wasn’t sure you could have a white picket fence with a Gothic gate, but hey, it wasn’t my life.
LKH thinks there is something wrong with my life. I am married to my husband. Neither of us fucks anyone else or even wants to. Neither of us is goffic. Nor do we have, or want, violent jobs. We are white and nerdy. There has never been one bit of a conflict between having mundane, if more nerdy than average, lives and our sex life. That LKH thinks there would be such a conflict shows what a deeply reactionary and close-minded person she is. She's deeply strange.
Then they explain what a switch is. It's boring.
Anita claims, “I maintain that it isn’t what a person enjoys in the bedroom, or dungeon, that makes them submissive, but the mindset that goes with it.” What. How can what one enjoys be separated from the mindset? By the way, LKH keeps talking about “sub mindset”, and I have never seen this term before. The term I have often seen, and use myself, is “sub space.” Sometimes “subspace.” Because the overlap between nerdy and liking BDSM seems to be larger than would happen by chance.
Richard says that he sees Anita go into this “sub mindset” as much as Asher. Micah agrees. Anita has nothing to say about it, because they get sidetracked with sheltered college professor Ellen being freaked out by the term “dungeon”. Micah says, “It’s just a term for the bondage side of things that go beyond just rough sex” (15). Wait, what? That's the first I've heard of that. How do you separate “just rough sex” from other stuff anyway? I'd love to have the money and room for a dungeon (there would be a lot of silk involved along with the chains on the wall), but I have no idea what Micah's talking about here.
We never do learn, because Ellen winces at the term “rough sex” and Anita ponders how sad this is. You see, because Richard has a big cock (is “so well-endowed”) that there is “an element of roughness in most of his sex” (16). Oh yay, now LKH is insulting the sexuality of big-dicked men, not of me personally!
Here is another lesson for you, LKH:
1) There is this thing called foreplay. It not only provides closeness and the enjoyment of each other's bodies; it also gets bodies ready for sex. The vagina becomes lubricated and also less tight.
a. Sometimes the vagina does not provide enough lubrication on its own, especially when the penis that will be entering it is circumcised, or the vagina-owner is at a certain point in their menstrual cycle, or as they gets older, or many other reasons. The penis being extremely large is one of them. There is a wonderful invention called personal lubricant to help smooth things along. Do not use KY or any other lube with glycerin in it – glycerin can cause yeast infections. Babeland makes good organic lube.
b. Yes, being (relatively) less tight is a good thing here. Not only does it usually make for more pleasure for the person with the vulva; most penis-bearing persons do not enjoy the sensation of trying to squeeze a banana into a finger ring.
2) Unless Richard's penis is the size of his forearm, he should not “have” to be so rough. He should not be hurting his partner/s with his penis unless that's what he and said partner/s want. Having a large dick does not mean BEING a large dick. I don't know what experience you've had, if any, to make you think otherwise, but you are very very wrong. And you need to change therapists.
How could you enjoy sex with him if you didn’t like it a little rough? Or maybe, how would Richard be able to enjoy it if she didn’t like a little rough? It just seemed sad. Why was he doing this to himself?
Anita/LKH is an asshole and an ignoramus. Most people who like rough sex don't need it every single damn time; nor do all of us like the sensation of a penis hurting our vaginas all the time (or ever), or vice versa, even during rough sex. LKH seems to think “rough sex” = “really hard painful humping”, and... that's it. Also, maybe Richard loves Ellen for reasons other than her vagina, loves sex with her for reasons other than her vagina, doesn't actually have any problems with being gentle because he is not a colossal dick, and *gasp* might even enjoy gentle sex, which he never gets with you because all you care about is being jackhammered?
So, back to this story of spite. This is where the BDSM stuff comes up. So this is long.
Micah says Anita won't believe Ellen that Anita is prettier than her. Ellen is scornful about this, because Ellen is written by Laurell K. Hamilton, who has apparently never talked to an actual woman in her life. A conversation about who is prettier is normal among women, and it is normal for each woman to say and truly believe that the other is prettier, because it is normal for women not to believe they are pretty at all. Mass media is constantly telling us that we are not pretty, and the internet has made it worse. All of my aunts are beautiful, and all of them think there is something deeply wrong with their appearance.
Anita then proceeds to give makeup and clothing advice. She says to Ellen “with the right makeup and a blue that had more jewel tones you'd look every bit as good as I do” (8). Ellen is scornful of this offer. For very good reasons: Ellen didn't ask for her advice; Anita just admitted she thinks she's prettier than Ellen; and Anita's makeup and clothing are TERRIBLE. But LKH writes this as if Ellen is angry that Anita is pretending Ellen could ever look as good as Anita.
Ellen then says Anita is “exotic”. Pffft. She's pale with dark hair and dark eyes. So am I. Admittedly, my hair is not black, and I am not some magical creature who cannot tan, but come on! According to this nonsense, all I'd need to be “exotic” is to dye my hair a slightly darker shade.
Then we get to the rage-making line of Ellen claiming every woman knows how attractive she is. This is a lie. This is a lie that LKH must know on some level is a lie. No American woman who actually has regular contact with other American women would claim this with a straight face.
The reason Anita supposedly doesn't know she's attractive, though she obviously does because she said she was in that obnoxious makeup advice? Her stepmother Judith told people that Anita wasn't hers, and that her mother was Mexican. She never said this in front of Anita. This is the Horrible and Terrible Abuse through which poor poor Anita has suffered. That's it. That's all. And Anita assumes that Judith did this because – it's terrible to contemplate – Anita wasn't blonde and tall. Oh the horror. Oh the pain. My father and his brother had to hide behind the couch waiting for the cops to come while their father beat their mother, but that is nothing to a stepparent saying she is not your biological mother. I weep bitter tears for you having to go through this, Anita, truly I do. Because it's not possible Judith was trying to show respect for your mother and boundaries by saying she was your stepmother – no, she must have had evil motivations. She is a tall blonde woman, after all. Probably with high cheekbones.
Now, I can't say anything about the horrible privations girls and women of average height go through. Nor can I say anything about the (real as opposed to LKH's bullshit) prejudice that Mexican-Americans experience. But let me tell you, internets, being a pale-skinned brunette is HORRIBLE. One's hair doesn't turn green from being in the pool a lot. We have just no one at all to look up to as every single woman lauded as a beauty by Hollywood is blonde. And we all know about those horrible jokes about brunettes being stupid that get passed around all the time, right?
This is one thing that LKH does over and over and over again. Except inasmuch as we're women, pale women with dark hair are not some sort of oppressed group. And that's what it always boils down to for LKH, plus shortness. It's not that Anita has an accent or a different culture or etc., because none of that is true. It's that she's short and especially that she has dark hair. Period. And, as seen in this story, those things along with her pasty skin make her “exotic” and get people to fall at her feet telling her how beautiful she is. We are supposed to sympathize with her suffering when what supposedly causes her suffering actually gets her only good things.
Everyone acts like Anita has just shared a story of unfathomable abuse at the hands of her evil stepmother. Ellen is shocked, shocked I say, at what vicious cruelty said stepmother inflicted on poor poor Anita. Could LKH possibly be more sheltered? I do not understand why, if she wanted Anita to have been horribly abused, she didn't make Anita actually be horribly abused.
Ellen says, “So you mean it, that you think we’re both pretty, because you don’t believe you’re beautiful?” (10) Anita nods. In other words, Anita is claiming she thinks she's only slightly prettier than Ellen and only because of Anita's hideous makeup and clothing. And Anita does not think she is beautiful. So she just told Ellen she does not think Ellen is beautiful. Ellen is engaged to one of Anita's penii. Just slap Ellen in the face, Anita. We all know you want to, and it would be less cruel. You despicable prick.
The fact that Nathaniel exists and is one of Anita's boyfriends comes up. Ellen has a hard time fathoming this. Oh please. She's a college professor. They go on about how to define everyone, and it's really boring and I don't see why everyone needs to be defined like this anyway.
Aah, now we get to the reason I am reading this dreck. Anita says she'd introduce Richard as her “Top” – capitalized – at “a more poly- or kink-friendly event” (12).
LKH, here is the first lesson.
1) All poly people are not into kink.
2) Everyone into some kind of kink is not poly.
Now, I only know #1 because, well, I notice stuff. But I know #2 from personal experience. It is entirely possible and not at all uncommon to be what is often termed “kinky” and entirely monogamous at the same time. Exhibit A: me. Exhibit B: my husband. I know it is very difficult for you to understand that every sexuality you consider non-standard does not always go together, but there it is. My husband and I are also heterosexual, even. Shocking, I know.
Richard then says he would introduce Anita “as my bottom, or submissive.” Anita objects that she is not submissive. Really? Then why did you capitalize “Top”, Anita? I've never seen that done unless it denoted dominance. Actually I've never seen that done to the word “top”, period. The word “dominant” is often capitalized to signify, well, dominance. I can't think of any other reason to capitalize “Top” except to do the same.
(I do not capitalize “dominant” because I feel it carries the implication that a dominant is a more valuable and valid person than a submissive. Also I feel there is an implicit demand that everyone acknowledge the dominant's supposed superiority, and that rankles something fierce. As I have seen people with these very attitudes, I do not want to encourage them. Besides, it just feels wrong to me.)
Anita says a bottom is someone who submits but only in the bedroom. Richard replies with something that very many critics of LKH, including me, have very often said:
Some people who are very dominant in every other part of their life are submissive in the dungeon and bedroom, and are still okay with the term, and say they have a dominant. (13)
Yes. Like me. Now, I wouldn't classify myself as very dominant generally, but I'm not exactly non-dominant either. And when talking about sexuality, I define myself as submissive. (And monogamous too, LKH.) Though I might not be submissive with a man other than my husband, if I were ever with a man other than my husband, which will not happen as I am monogamous.
Anita replies:
I’m not, because I may like to be physically dominated, but no one dominates me by will, or force of personality. To me a submissive is more than just physically dominated, it’s about giving up your will to someone else and letting them control you more completely
Anita is Humpty Dumptying terms, and I believe I know why. She thinks there is something wrong with being submissive. This is a sadly common attitude, and I've especially seen it when applied to women. That if a woman is submissive sexually, she cannot be a feminist, and she must be being abused. One article that seemed to defend women being submissive ended up with saying basically “and it's okay because she'll end up being dominant in the end.” It does not help that people like LKH and E.L. James put out garbage that shows women being abused and claiming it's BDSM.
Anita clearly thinks there is something wrong with anyone who enjoys giving control to someone else because of the force of that person's personality and/or act of will, at least if the person giving up control is a woman. In other words, LKH thinks there is something wrong with my sexuality. I do not understand why she thinks being physically dominated is okay but being psychologically dominated is not.
I wasn’t sure you could have a white picket fence with a Gothic gate, but hey, it wasn’t my life.
LKH thinks there is something wrong with my life. I am married to my husband. Neither of us fucks anyone else or even wants to. Neither of us is goffic. Nor do we have, or want, violent jobs. We are white and nerdy. There has never been one bit of a conflict between having mundane, if more nerdy than average, lives and our sex life. That LKH thinks there would be such a conflict shows what a deeply reactionary and close-minded person she is. She's deeply strange.
Then they explain what a switch is. It's boring.
Anita claims, “I maintain that it isn’t what a person enjoys in the bedroom, or dungeon, that makes them submissive, but the mindset that goes with it.” What. How can what one enjoys be separated from the mindset? By the way, LKH keeps talking about “sub mindset”, and I have never seen this term before. The term I have often seen, and use myself, is “sub space.” Sometimes “subspace.” Because the overlap between nerdy and liking BDSM seems to be larger than would happen by chance.
Richard says that he sees Anita go into this “sub mindset” as much as Asher. Micah agrees. Anita has nothing to say about it, because they get sidetracked with sheltered college professor Ellen being freaked out by the term “dungeon”. Micah says, “It’s just a term for the bondage side of things that go beyond just rough sex” (15). Wait, what? That's the first I've heard of that. How do you separate “just rough sex” from other stuff anyway? I'd love to have the money and room for a dungeon (there would be a lot of silk involved along with the chains on the wall), but I have no idea what Micah's talking about here.
We never do learn, because Ellen winces at the term “rough sex” and Anita ponders how sad this is. You see, because Richard has a big cock (is “so well-endowed”) that there is “an element of roughness in most of his sex” (16). Oh yay, now LKH is insulting the sexuality of big-dicked men, not of me personally!
Here is another lesson for you, LKH:
1) There is this thing called foreplay. It not only provides closeness and the enjoyment of each other's bodies; it also gets bodies ready for sex. The vagina becomes lubricated and also less tight.
a. Sometimes the vagina does not provide enough lubrication on its own, especially when the penis that will be entering it is circumcised, or the vagina-owner is at a certain point in their menstrual cycle, or as they gets older, or many other reasons. The penis being extremely large is one of them. There is a wonderful invention called personal lubricant to help smooth things along. Do not use KY or any other lube with glycerin in it – glycerin can cause yeast infections. Babeland makes good organic lube.
b. Yes, being (relatively) less tight is a good thing here. Not only does it usually make for more pleasure for the person with the vulva; most penis-bearing persons do not enjoy the sensation of trying to squeeze a banana into a finger ring.
2) Unless Richard's penis is the size of his forearm, he should not “have” to be so rough. He should not be hurting his partner/s with his penis unless that's what he and said partner/s want. Having a large dick does not mean BEING a large dick. I don't know what experience you've had, if any, to make you think otherwise, but you are very very wrong. And you need to change therapists.
How could you enjoy sex with him if you didn’t like it a little rough? Or maybe, how would Richard be able to enjoy it if she didn’t like a little rough? It just seemed sad. Why was he doing this to himself?
Anita/LKH is an asshole and an ignoramus. Most people who like rough sex don't need it every single damn time; nor do all of us like the sensation of a penis hurting our vaginas all the time (or ever), or vice versa, even during rough sex. LKH seems to think “rough sex” = “really hard painful humping”, and... that's it. Also, maybe Richard loves Ellen for reasons other than her vagina, loves sex with her for reasons other than her vagina, doesn't actually have any problems with being gentle because he is not a colossal dick, and *gasp* might even enjoy gentle sex, which he never gets with you because all you care about is being jackhammered?
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2) Exotic referring to people is fucked up to begin with, but pale skin and dark hair, again, not unusual. It’s how I look, and how my mom looks, albeit with blue eyes rather than brown like Anita and LKH, and when we went to Ireland, where my grandfather is from, that is how almost everyone looked. There were a pair of girls in the airport that could have been my damn triplets. I’ve seen plenty of pale brunettes here in the USA too, and while I did get called “exotic” once by a fellow pale-skinned brunette because I had blue eyes with my brown hair I think that had to do more with the area we were in not having a whole lot of Irish-descended folks. Sorry to keep bring up IRISH it’s just the only group I know of who are specifically known for being pale brunettes (though of course they occur in every white population, I’m sure). LKH has, as far as I know, completely Celtic heritage herself, so that explains her own looking like that…and thus makes me baffled as to why she thinks someone would have to be half-white and half-Mexican to look like it when she’s not half-Mexican at all.
3) All women know they’re attractive? Ingrained in us as little girls? ON WHAT FUCKING PLANET?! Even women who do manage to fit in to the *possible* aspects of beauty standards (white, cisgender, thin, able-bodied, clear skin, a specific facial shape and facial features, shaves, etc.) are still up against an impossible ideal; magazines edit out pores and the natural lines the body makes when it bends over, actually move the bones of models in photoshopping, etc. And if you’re not in this very narrow idea, if you’re fat or trans or visibly physically disabled or not white or just have the wrong set of features or have a scar or mole in the wrong place or acne or whatever, guess what, YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE ‘UGLY’ AND ARE TREATED AS ‘LESS’ FOR IT. Obviously having bad zits is not on par with being trans, but you get my point, right?
4) I fail to see how Judith is evil. So she told people you were from her hubby’s first marriage? Given how much you clearly hated her replacing your mom, I think she was doing it for your sake, since she knew you’d probably hate the idea that people might think you were her mom. As for the Mexican thing…LKH is one of those people who thinks acknowledging a person isn’t white is racist (which…is more racist than not, because it suggest being POC is some embarrassing, taboo topic you shouldn’t bring up, like not mentioning someone has a big deformity or something) so the fact that Judith stated it aloud shows she’s clearly racist and wants Anita to hurt by being reminded she is, gasp, HALF MEXICAN! My headcanon is she noticed what a complex Anita seems to have over it and how bad she thinks it is, and was trying to show Anita that BEING NOT-WHITE IS A NORMAL AND OKAY THING YOU BATSHIT RACIST by casually mentioning it and showing her how no one she said it to thought less of Anita for it.
Like, I don't mean to pretend that people who are mixed-race do not suffer for it. But the way LKH treats it/Anita acts about it, it's portrayed not as if the problem is society being shitty, but as if being mixed is itself inherently just bad. Everything related to Anita's Mexican side is always portrayed as evil and dark, except for her dear mother and that's because she's DEAD.
5) THAT IS A LIE, YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND MUST BE POLY AND BI TOO, YOU CAN'T BE KINKY WHILE ALSO BEING STRAIGHT AND MONO, OR VICE VERSA!
6) I'm not into BDSM at all but I assumed a dungeon was, well, that. Or at least a room made up like the fantasy of one.
7) "Unless Richard's penis is the size of his forearm" It probably is, Anita says in Kiss the Dead that he's second in size only to Micah
8) Even if he somehow can't do PIV without it being rough, there are other things they can do! You'd think someone so ~not vanilla!~ would know that!
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Also, has thee been anything but talking up to this point?
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2) LKH is altogether baffling.
3) For serious. No woman can fit the beauty standard, and that's the point of it in consumer culture: keep women worried so you can fleece them. Plus there is no one beauty standard among human beings; what someone finds beautiful, another can find "meh" or even ugly. For instance, I find Robert Pattinson deeply unattractive. So LKH is spreading multiple lies here.
4) I really don't get why LKH didn't write Judith as evil if she wanted Judith to be evil. I guess maybe she is basing Judith on a real person, as she did with Ellen. And yeah, LKH having Anita be oh woe about her experiences is particularly rich, considering the way LKH treats anyone who is not lily white in her stories.
5) I AM LYING TO MYSELF AND DON'T REALIZE IT, THE WISDOM OF LKH HAS SHOWN ME THE WAY, I MUST FIND A WOMAN TO BOINK. I wonder if Aishwarya Rai is available.
6) Yeah, I don't think this is the first Ellen would have heard of a dungeon. She's a biology professor, not a member of one of those cults that "shields" its victims from the world.
7) *facepalm* My own experience makes this hilarious to me, because just in my experience, long dicks are difficult to get hard and difficult to keep hard. I'm not saying that's a universal by any means, but it's something that makes this extra-amusing to me.
8) I am continually boggled by how ignorant and prudish this writer of supposedly sexy novels is. Do you think LKH would read a link to Scarleteen if someone sent her one? :P
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Well, there's been Anita dwelling on how much better she is than this other woman. Also Anita took a sip of coffee. Otherwise: all talking.
ETA: I am feeling less muzzy-headed, so here it is, as briefly as I can put it:
A BDSM relationship is like any other healthy sexual relationship; it is about the wants and needs of both/all partners. Many people say that the sub is the one with more power than the dom, and that argument is a valid one. Personally, however, I think the sub and dom have an equal amount of power -- and I think a lot of the "sub has all the power" arguments are based on the idea that giving up power says something bad about a person. But that's just my take on it, and though I disagree with the argument that the sub has all or most of the power, it is a cordial disagreement and not something I care to argue about much. And maybe in their relationships the sub does have most of the power, while in mine I see it as more equal, and maybe I'm wrong and have more power than I think I do vis a vis my husband. No big deal in any case.
Then there is 50 Shades and LKH and, generally, the popular portrayal of BDSM. In this dynamic, the dom has all the power and that's all there is to it. I have met (online) some people in relationships like this. This is when BDSM becomes the excuse and cover for thoroughgoing abuse. It is when the sub's needs are completely subsumed into the dom's desires. In the relationships like this I've seen, sex also seems to have become to pivot on which everything in life turns for the people involved. I have seen people lecture others that they aren't submissive enough when they care about their own needs at all; I've seen women be constantly unhappy because the men they're with (always men) refuse to do anything to make them happy. I've seen men actually say that if they did anything to make their subs happy, then the men wouldn't be properly dominating and the women wouldn't be properly submissive. (I have only seen this dynamic when the man is the "dom" and the woman is the "sub"; I'm sure it can happen among different gender configurations, but I have yet to see it.) And I have seen many people talk like "sub" is an abbreviation for "subhuman" rather than "submissive."
I wonder if the same thing happens in cultures which don't value aggressiveness, independence, and dominance, and devalue passivity, dependence, and submission as much as ours. But it happens pretty constantly in ours, unfortunately. The vast majority of people in BDSM relationships are very very careful about active consent and pleasing everyone involved. However, we're not the ones with the bestselling novels about sex; and the other kind can be pretty loud even in non-mainstream culture. Since I think language matters, I don't want to further horrible ideas even in the slightest by capitalizing "dominant", as I see it encouraging, in a small way, attitudes I find reprehensible. Even if not for these attitudes, I think I would find capitalizing "dominant" problematic, if only for my own life, because I am rather big on equality.
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And much more than the kind of BDSM that uses misogyny as its reasoning why things should be and why men should always be in charge.
How come someone with a healthy BDSM relationship doesn't get a bestseller novel?
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Just for myself, I've never written anything but very short pieces that were focused on BDSM because, well... I can't imagine writing a whole novel revolving around sex. They're boring enough to read. Large amounts of sex and romance, yes, but 300+ pages of sex, yawn. I'd guess that there are people with healthy BDSM relationships who happen to have bestselling novels, but since their entire lives do not revolve around sex, they're not interested in writing characters whose entire lives revolve around sex either. I've been playing with how to write BDSM sex scenes in a novel that is not about BDSM, and it is not easy.
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Of course, they would then have to write a story that wasn't so messed up in the relationship dynamics, too.