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Erotic Authors Association has an interview with Joan Kelly, author of The Pleasure's All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive - I also interview Joan in next week's Lusty Lady column on professional submissives

Joan Kelly is the author of the new book The Pleasure’s All Mine, a wonderful memoir about Joan’s experiences as a professional submissive. Joan was kind enough to tell us about her writing process, her career as a sub, and her thoughts on feminism and kinky sex.

RG: First of all, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me about your new book. I read it twice and really enjoyed it. How long have you been writing, and what sorts of writing have you done? Were you writing about becoming a professional submissive as it was happening, or did this book evolve later?

JK: I've been writing badly since about the sixth grade, and all I've ever really attempted has been nonfiction, personal narrative stuff. I started getting better at it by my late twenties, which is when I started writing more consistently and also getting more help.

For the first couple of years in this job, I was writing about it but in a very disorganized and sporadic way. Then I joined a writing group and really started working on actual chapters - totally out of order and with no idea at first how to write an actual book with all the elements it's supposed to contain. Sometimes I would write about a session or sessions right after they happened, and sometimes I would be writing about sessions or things that had happened a couple of years before in the time line.

RG: Your biography says that you've written for the fabulous BUST magazine and that you are an ardent feminist. It can be really disconcerting to be a "strong woman" and still desire to be tied up or spanked. Do you think your experiences as a submissive have affected your feminism? And how would you respond if somebody suggested that your profession meant you “must not be a real feminist”?

JK: I don't think my experiences with sexual submission have affected my feminism so much as my feminism has influenced, and continues to influence, both the kinds of experiences I'm willing to have sexually - in and outside of BDSM - and what's problematic for me about most of the sexual options that are out there.

So far all the other feminists I know and love have been completely nonjudgmental about my work as a pro sub. That doesn't mean that none of us have concerns about sex work and its effects, or that my own relationship to kinky sex work is uncomplicated. I do think it's worth noting that while all forms of prostitution are, in my view, rightly a feminist issue, feminists tend to be busy enough with the real work that needs to get done that they don't so much have time to sit around and worry about whether I like being spanked or getting paid for it as an individual.

RG: The opening of your book is fantastic because it addresses something so universal -- sitting in a big room filled with people you don't know, listening to them talk about something that sounds really boring and even kind of creepy. So the reader instantly identifies with you. In general, in fact, it seems like you have a really good connection with people and are able to form a quick rapport. Do you think this trait has helped you in your work?

JK: Thank you for the kind words. I think the fact that it's somewhat easy for me to project a sort of non-threatening, unexotic personality in both my writing and in real life with strangers has indeed come in handy during this job in particular. The men who pay to tie me up and spank me are by and large pretty nervous the first time we meet. More so than I am, a lot of the time. They want to feel safe with me as much as I want to feel safe with them - we just have different areas of vulnerability. If I can make somebody feel more comfortable about something he's felt a lot of shame about previously, it can go a long way towards securing repeat business. Plus it's just a lot more enjoyable for me to feel connected to anyone I'm spending any kind of time around, so when I can swing it, that's what I aim for.

RG: Your book has a great section where you tell us about the first time you realized that you were a little kinky. You talk about fantasizing about a boy you have a crush on, only to discover that the image of his spanking you keeps coming into your head. It's a great section because it speaks to how surprising and shocking those thoughts can be. Later in the book, you talk about different relationships that left you confused and sometimes hurt. How have you dealt with that confusion and uncertainty? Was writing this book a part of that?

JK: I definitely felt like writing this book helped me better understand and feel some peace around the way things went with the person I refer to as "T" in the book. I had actually been in contact with him again during the time I was writing the book, and some of what still troubled me got resolved through conversations we had, but some of it was still just really uncomfortable for me to think about.

I also changed a lot just from doing professional submissive sessions for a living these past few years. I had to be so in control of what kinds of things and clients I exposed myself to that it was almost automatic that I would end up with a better sense of both what I liked and of my right to have whatever boundaries and limits I have. I don't feel in danger anymore of taking someone else's word for it that things have to be a certain way, or that I have to prove myself to anyone. Maybe that's just from getting older too, I don't know, but I just feel like this is how I am, this is what I like, take it or leave it.

RG: Throughout the book I think you do an amazing job of making the reader feel as you do -- confused, nervous, excited, pissed, whatever. That's such an important part of being a writer. Is that something you have to work at, or does it come fairly naturally to you?

JK: Thank you. I would say I have to work at writing, period. The compulsion to write, and to write about people and experiences that move me in one way or another, comes pretty naturally, but the ability to do it with any success whatsoever has been a result of having lots of help from lots of other writers. I'm mostly either too self-conscious or too vain in reading my own material to ever be able to tell whether I've written something effective for readers or not. I feel like I learned most of whatever I've learned about how to write just in the last three or so years of being in my writing group. I wouldn't have been able to write this book without them, that's a fact.

RG: You mention that you are "out" to most of your friends and family, and of course you now have a book coming out which talks about your life in very candid detail. How do you handle the loss of privacy that entails? What was it like "coming out"?

JK: I don't actually know yet how I'll handle any real loss of privacy, if that happens to any extent after the book comes out. If you mean like having strangers point and stare and be like, "There's that pervert who wrote that book," I'm sure that would make me uncomfortable. But in terms of people just knowing really personal things about me - I don't know why exactly, but I feel pretty detached about that whole idea. Almost like as long as nobody's cruel to me about it, it doesn't actually matter what anybody thinks or knows about me.

I personally love knowing all the stuff that's usually kept secret about other people, and it doesn't come from wanting to invade their privacy but just from wanting to understand what other people are like. Am I like them? Am I different in ways that are "normal"? I don't mean this to sound cheesy, but I like the idea that my compulsion to blurt everything out on the page could possibly help anybody else feel less isolated or freakish.

"Coming out" about this job was mostly pretty banal quite honestly. I'm lucky to have a family and friends who really don't care what I'm doing as long as I'm happy, and who respect that I'm going to make whatever decisions I want to make about my life. The only time it took me off guard when I "came out" to someone about this stuff was when I told my former landlady. She and I had bonded about being crazy cat ladies, and because she's a little older, I was worried she would feel totally scandalized to find out that I, literally the former girl-next-door, was actually a dirty whore of sorts. Instead she simply cut me off, mid-explanation, with the mild-mannered reassurance that she'd "seen CSI" and knew about "this S and M stuff." I hadn't thought it was possible to love her more than I already did...

RG: There are scenes in your book that are beautifully written but so intense that they are almost hard to read. I'm thinking specifically of the chapters about Jake, who takes you to such a vulnerable place sexually. Vulnerability, of course, is a huge part of being submissive. It's really amazing how well you are able to describe what you are feeling to your reader. Was that difficult? Or do you think that your ability to submit in that way makes it easier to express in your writing?

JK: Thanks again for the kind words. I want to say that none of it was difficult - not because I didn't have to work hard to write and re-write things a million times, but because I really trusted I would get the help I needed from my writing group to fix things when they didn't work. It took all the pressure off me - all I felt like I had to do was write what happened and how I felt about it to the best of my ability, then bring it into group and find out how to do it better when I needed to. I think I was also lucky to get to write about things as they were happening, things that excited me so much. Writing feels like a breeze when you're just writing things you'd be talking to your best friend about anyway.

RG: Do you ever wonder if your professional life has affected your romantic life? As I read your book I discovered that I really wanted you to find a wonderful partner. The joy you describe finding as a submissive is so powerful, it would be hard to resist wanting that all the time. But as one of the dommes you meet says, you might "end up doing it for free." Do you think you would ever consider a dominant/submissive relationship outside of your work?

JK: When I first started doing pro sub stuff, I felt like I'd never get to date anyonehealthy or sane as long as I was doing this for a living. And in fact, I haven't had any regular-type boyfriends during this time. But I think the biggest effect this job has had on my romantic life is that it's made me a lot clearer about what I want, and what I don't need. In a way it spoiled me - I had a regular erotic outlet through sessions, and really intimate platonic relationships in my life, so I wasn't overly motivated to settle for a romantic relationship that didn't really suit me.

That said, hell yes I would consider a relationship in my personal life that involves the kind of kinky stuff I love. I don't know that it would necessarily be with someone who identifies as a "dominant" in the stereotypical sense, but certainly I have fantasies about ending up with someone who's good at sexually controlling me in ways I like.

RG: Many people in the kink community believe in the concept of the "true submissive." Do you subscribe to this concept? Do you think there are "real" and "fake" submissives?

JK: It's weird, the person who wrote the Publishers Weekly review of the book referred to me as a "true submissive," and I just felt like EEK when I read that. I mostly feel like the definition I've seen of what it means to be a "true submissive" is to simply take a person who could use a couple of Codependents Anonymous meetings and slap a sexy label on him/her. I don't personally valorize the act of putting another person's needs or wants above my own, let alone all the time, and the fact that this is what a fair amount of people consider "true submissiveness" is part of what's made it so hard for me to understand what the hell was up for me, sexually. I don't get why kinky folks refer to themselves as being in an "alternative lifestyle" if ideas of authenticity are defined and in any way enforced by others. There's nothing alternative at all about sexual and social hierarchies, rigid roles or expectations. All that true and false stuff just tends to irritate me.

Cleis Press interviews their author Tristan Taormino all about butt sex and her newly revised book The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women

CF: Is there one aspect of anal sex that seems to especially attract women?

TT: I think that both the naughtiness of anal sex and the intensity of it attract women most. It can be very psychologically and emotionally charged, as well as physically intense—combine all those elements, and the results are orgasmic.