Whether you're here from Salon or not, you might like my 3 female domination anthologies and my bondage erotica collection that is full of femdom erotica, thanks to my awesome writers (interested in writing some smut? Follow the
guidelines for Best Bondage Erotica 2013). In my opinion, my writing on the topic has evolved, in large part by my own personal interest and activity in this arena, but also by nature of exposure to more types of writing and scenarios. The cover of
She's on Top remains one of my favorites of mine.
She's on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission
Yes, Ma'am
Introduction: Giving It Up: Letting Her Rule
Zero Sum Game by Alex Mendra
Secret Desires by Ellen Tevault
Tea for Three by Lee Ash
Exhibit A by Chris Cooper
A Different Kind of Reality Show by D. L. King
Secretary’s Day by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Wedding Night by Dominic Santi
Flash by Alison Tyler
It’s Cold Outside by Stephen Elliott
An Invitation to the Dance by Sylvane Alistair
Sticking with You by L. E. Bland
i 1t u 2 do sumfin 4 me by George Cross
Rope Burn by A. D. R. Forte
His Lady’s Manservant by Andrea Dale
Taming the Unruly by Debra Hyde
The Big What by Michael Hemmingson
The Mean Girl by Teresa Noelle Roberts
Connection by Kristina Wright
Introduction
Giving It Up: Letting Her Rule
“What makes a man cower before a powerful woman?” I asked in my call for submissions for this book. What you’ll find here are numerous answers to that question, though surely there are infinitely more waiting to be written. Men are the ones gifted with all sorts of power in our society, but our dirty little secret is that so many of them long to strip themselves of this power, to be tied down, gagged, spanked, taken, owned. They want to be made to do a woman’s bidding, whether that means being ordered into a threesome or put on full, naked display, as you will read about here. They want to ease the burdens of manliness, if only for a little while, to be “ordered” to do all the naughty things they’ve dreamed of.
Submissive men are some of the most misunderstood, and invisible, sexual creatures around. Their voices simply aren’t heard in popular culture, though you’ll find them in plenty of bedrooms, in the blogosphere, and in fetish clubs. After putting together the anthologies He’s on Top and She’s on Top, I wanted to look at BDSM from the bottom’s perspective. Why would a man want to give up control? What does he get out of such an arrangement? These stories show you some of the tantalizing possibilities out there for sniveling men and the women who love them.
Men who crave the company of a dominant woman find her with wives, girlfriends, and dominatrices, sometimes bringing out the kinky tendencies of their partners, other times tapping into what’s already well developed, yet we rarely hear their authentic voices telling us what makes them shiver with fear and excitement. There’s still a taboo element to our leaders—in business, government, and the home—voluntarily relinquishing the top spot. Men are taught to be the hunters, not the hunted, and when the tables are turned, many are all too thrilled to be treated like scum. The flipside is that any woman who can lure a submissive man into her lair knows just how valuable a prize she’s gotten and will surely want to keep him happy, even if this means putting her foot down, literally, upon him, as the boss in “Secretary’s Day” does to her new hire.
“Masturbation without permission was strictly forbidden. This was the most difficult for me because I got so worked up being Rikka’s little whore that I desperately needed to jerk off,” writes Alex Mendra in “Zero Sum Game.” He describes his setup with the commanding Rikka as “perfection,” striving to be everything she desires, but delighting in each form of punishment she cooks up, whether a firm spanking across his ass or the sudsy scene she cooks up for him.
In Stephen Elliott’s “It’s Cold Outside,” the element of realism he so beautifully captures takes us far beyond the clichéd Catwoman fantasy into the stuff of real life, where a woman commandeers the body of the narrator while her boyfriend is asleep. She leaves him tied up, helpless—and horny, and he takes her marks with him, literally and figuratively, when they part.
In “The Mean Girl,” Teresa Noelle Roberts writes of a man reminiscing about his first fantasy domme, now embodied by his real-life Cruella. “I tasted every humiliation I’d ever faced in my hopeless pursuit of Muffy Spaulding—made new and fresh and delicious because now it was coming from Heather, whom I loved. Whom I really did worship, kinky games aside.”
There’s also plenty of humor here. In “A Different Kind of Reality Show” by D. L. King, the author takes us behind the TV screen, where a man is controlled by a cacophony of women’s voices, each taking more delight than the next in ordering him to humiliate himself for their pleasure.
Debra Hyde encapsulates perfectly why the “unruly” man doesn’t just wish to be tamed, but needs to be. “Fear no longer dominates; submission does. I am vessel and vassal—tool and toy, the means to her pleasure. I am hers.” If those words resonate with you, making you long for a woman to come along and grab you by the scruff of your neck, or order you to your knees, or simply control you with one fierce, all-knowing look, then this is the book for you. Go ahead, say the words out loud: “Yes, Ma’am.” Wherever your domme is, she’ll hear you.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City
Please, Ma'am
And
Best Bondage Erotica 2012 isn't strictly (ha!) about female dominance, but it's heavily influenced by female dominance, as my introduction attests (and Midori wrote the foreword!).
Introduction to
Best Bondage Erotica 2012
Tying Men Up: Dominant Women Storm the Pages
I was surprised this year to see that, unlike with previous anthologies in this series, the overwhelming majority of stories submitted to Best Bondage Erotica 2012 involved women tying up and tormenting men. It was a theme I couldn’t ignore, and you will see it heavily represented in these pages. I’ve pondered why exactly that theme showed up at this time, and while I don’t have any firm conclusions, I can say that the range of scenarios you’ll find here showcase a wide range of ingenuity.
What I especially appreciate is that we get to see a variety of dominant women, some exacting a kind of (consensual) revenge, some giving eager men exactly what they deserve, as with the couple in Teresa Noelle Roberts’s “Suffer for Me.” She writes:
I began with his nipple.
When I caught it in between my long red fingernails, he braced himself for a twist, a cruel pinch. I could see in his wide, entreating eyes that he both feared and hoped for it.
Instead, I caressed first one then the other with all the delicacy I could muster, applying just enough pressure so it pleasured rather than tickled. Then I took one into my mouth, licking and sucking and teasing the little nub, nipping down enough to vary the kind of pleasure he experienced, but not enough to push it over into real pain.
This narrator, who we know only as “Ma’am,” is exploring the delight of being in charge, of plotting out what she will do to make Martin “suffer,” and it’s a delicious tale, one of many, of a woman coming into her own erotic power, with a willing, deserving man at her mercy.
And even though Terry in Giselle Renarde’s “Dry Rub” is not quite as eager a bondage participant as Martin, it’s clear that while he is not at first in on the plan, he too is getting off, in his own way. That is the beauty, to me, of bondage: when even what seems like a punishment can turn into a delightful, demanding and delicious torment, one you may not know why you like, but your body cannot lie. Instead, it’s Gina’s turn to enjoy the fact that she can have her husband any way she wants him. “She still had a grip on his hair, and his face looked so pitiful in her hands that she almost wanted to laugh. He was desperate, poor boy, and she wouldn’t give in. Tonight he was a tool of her pleasure, nothing more.”
Speaking of ingenuity, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the bold, gutsy, brilliant characters you’ll read about here who are so obsessed with bondage they’ll even tie themselves up to experience that delicious, chilling thrill. In Shoshanna Evers’s opening story “Melting Ice,” Amanda constructs a careful experiment in the art of self-bondage, one she’s been dreaming about for years. “She’d been so ready for this. The entire afternoon had been her foreplay.”
In “Parting Ways,” Tenille Brown shows us that you don’t have to be the binder or the bondee to enjoy the sight of a man squirming and writhing. Anyone who’s been tied up and exulted in the thrilling frustration of it will relate when she writes, “Derek shivered with the need to break free. He bit his bottom lip at the pleasure of being unable to.”
While there is plenty of female domination in these pages, for those who want to read about women who delight in the submissive satisfaction of being trapped by a Dominant’s mind, there’s plenty of that here too. In Kay Jaybee’s “The Cupboard Under the Stairs,” the not knowing what will happen next is all part of the fun. “A fresh surge of uncertainty zipped through Kristi. She’d thought the blindfold was the change in routine. It seemed she was wrong.” That love/hate relationship many subs feel is captured in Helen Sedgwick’s “Cumaná” when she writes, “I didn’t know if I should be enjoying this, if I should make him stop, but I couldn’t, wouldn’t, the tight pinching on my nipples at once unbearable and intoxicating.” Indeed, “unbearable and intoxicating” could also describe events in all of the stories in this naughty little book.
Bondage comes vividly alive in these twenty-four tales of everything from corsets to cling wrap, from couples dedicated to bondage to those just discovering its pleasures. You’ll find a range of stories from playful to perverse that I hope will give you some new ideas to try out⎯in your mind and beyond.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City
Labels: Best Bondage Erotica 2012, Cleis Press, erotic writing, erotica, femdom, Rachel Kramer Bussel, She's on Top, short stories, Yes Ma'am, Yes Sir
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