Fifty Shades of Grey fans and haters, here's a smarter and sexier Dom than Christian Grey

The subject of this week's Philadelphia City Paper sex column, "Meet a sexier, smarter Dom than Christian Grey," is Ernest Greene and his novel Master of O, a 700-page "must-read." Why? Here's a snippet:

Because rather than BDSM being used as an angst-ridden plot device where a troubling reason is given for a character's interest in punishment and power play, Greene's characters are unapologetically kinky. At one point, while being caned, Greene writes of O, the submissive heroine, "This was quality pain. She'd had little enough of it to know how rare it was."

The idea that erotic pain can even be measured is an audacious one in a society still sorting out what we think of kinky people. Only in 2013 did the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders downgrade BDSM from a mental disorder. Greene considers kink a sexual orientation similar to being gay.

Read the whole thing here.


photo by Steve Diet Goedde