Why rope is better than handcuffs for bondage, according to Emily Bingham

Check out "Confessions of a 'rope fiend'" at Philadelphia City Paper to find out all about why memoirist Emily Bingham loves rope bondage so much.



Here's a snippet:

Bingham’s evolved from being the one solely on the receiving end to doing the trussing herself and says now she “enjoys doing the binding as much as I enjoy being bound.” Rope, especially made from hemp or jute, is her favorite tool. Handcuffs just won’t do. Bingham gets practically poetic about her favorite equipment. “There’s a wonderful texture to the natural rope that feels lovely on the skin, especially when the person tied up struggles and the lines of rope creak like the mast of a ship.”

Read the whole column

Snapshots from Portland She Bop reading and see you again at Q Center September 18th

I'm off to the airport to get to Los Angeles but wanted to share two photos from last night's reading at She Bop in Portland, Oregon and let you know there's now a huge stack of signed books and I will go back and sign more next week when I'm in the neighborhood for my September 18 erotica writing workshop at Q Center. Advance tickets are preferred but you can get them at the door as well. Details below. Thank you to everyone who packed She Bop! It was a pleasure and a lot of fun.


Readers Emily Bingham, Stella Harris, me (Rachel Kramer Bussel), Laurel Isaac and the appropriately baseball-attired Tiffany Reisz (her jersey says "Reisz" on the back and she read from her baseball erotica story "Bringing the Heat" Hungry for More)

Before the reading I wandered around and found a macaroni and cheese restaurant, which I of course had to try (the veggie had spinach and broccoli and was awesome, especially with hot sauce) and then in walked sex geeks Queeraschino Cherry and The Redhead Bedhead, who reviews sex toy stores and runs the newly launched Portland Academy of Sex Education. I was wishing I had company and like magic, there they were!



September 18, 6-8pm
Erotica 101 writing workshop, Portland, Oregon
Professional erotica author and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, editor of over 50 anthologies such as The Big Book of Orgasms, Flying High and Best Bondage Erotica 2014, will take you through the ins and outs of modern erotic writing, from getting started, finding your voice, and incorporating your surroundings, pop culture, and personal experiences into your stories to crafting a range of characters and settings and submitting your work. The workshop is tailored to help get you published and highlight timely calls for submissions.

In this supportive, welcoming workshop environment, you'll learn how to write vividly about everyday scenarios as well as outlandish fantasies, and make them fit for particular publications in the thriving erotica market. This workshop will address the recent boom in erotica inspired by Fifty Shades of Grey, provide examples of well written erotica, and will include multiple writing exercises. You'll be given a handout listing major markets and further reading suggestions. No previous writing experience required. Please bring laptop or pen and paper. $25/person; register at Brown Paper Tickets.
Q Center, 4115 N. Mississippi Avenue, Portland, Oregon

5 sexy excerpts of what you'll hear tomorrow at She Bop in Portland, Oregon

Please join me, Tiffany Reisz, Stella Harris, Emily Bingham and Laurel Isaac tomorrow, September 10th at 7:30 for a free erotica reading from 4 of my books at She Bop, 909 N. Beech Street, Portland, Oregon, and if you can't make it, tell your friends (that's easy to do on Facebook). Here's 5 snippets of what you'll be hearing, and if there's time I may sneak in a bonus reader favorite story from The Big Book of Orgasms. Can't make the reading? Order online from She Bop.




(not pictured: Laurel Isaac)


Hungry for More

A tiny bit of "Bringing the Heat" by Tiffany Reisz - read more at her website.

They stepped into the room right across from the shower stalls. Through the other side of the curtain, Jada could peer in and see everything. It seemed to be some kind of therapy room. A padded leather table only about four feet high constituted the only furniture in the room. A plaque on the door read “Evan Christopher, Sports Therapist.”

Flak started to strip out of his uniform. Jada winced at the black bruise that covered the left side of his back where the fastball had struck him. Other than the bruise, however, Flak’s body was flawless—broad shoulders, well-muscled and sturdy, and yet not an ounce of fat on him. A young man’s body. The trainer, Evan, was sexy in his own right too. Slightly taller and about five years older, Evan wore wire-rimmed glasses on his handsome, intelligent face and had a seductive five o’clock shadow on his sculpted lower jaw.

The Big Book of Orgasms: 69 Sexy Stories

Here's an excerpt from "The Jeffrey Factor" by Stella Harris:

Jeff let him adjust to the sensation for a moment, sliding the vibrator in and out slowly, twisting and rubbing it against his inside walls, but only teasing the spot where he really wanted it.

The vibrator switched on and Shane moaned around the gag in his mouth; even on the lowest setting the sensations lit up his nerves. His nipples peaked and tightened and he thrust his hips upward, hoping against hope for friction he didn’t find.

Jeff laughed again. He claimed not to have a sadistic side, said he didn’t enjoy dishing out pain, but Shane considered this cruelty all the same.

The Big Book of Submission: 69 Kinky Tales (read 69 excerpts, one from each story, right here)

Here's a little bit of "How to Fail" by Laurel Isaac:

All I could think was how I must be doing something wrong. I must have forgotten some technique I usually use, or there must be something wrong with my body that the feeling good wasn’t kicking in. Maybe if I waited a little longer it would start to. Maybe this was how it always was in the beginning? If only he’d slow down I might be able to figure it out, but the paddle abruptly landed squarely in the middle of my right cheek. The throbbing felt like it had shocked me right in half. I let out a sob. And there it was again, and again. If only I had a minute, I might be able to…but the strokes kept landing, bludgeoning, deafening.

And here's a little from a male POV story I wrote called "Reverse Psychology:"

See, I’m not a sadist by nature—I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Really—I’m the kind of guy who goes out of my way to give directions or help little old ladies across the street. I’m a service sub, the worshipping sort, but I I fell madly in love with a woman who happens to be a masochistic domme. Sasha likes pain, but for her it has nothing to do with being a “bad girl” or any of that. If I dared to call her names like slut or whore during sex, she’d lock up my cock for a week.

For her, it’s about the sensation, the intensity, the feeling. She says getting flogged is cathartic, being spanked releases endorphins, having her nipples bitten makes her blood boil. And because I love her and want to please her, I do as she says. It’s a different kind of submission than any I’ve ever known, but I like obeying her, and knowing how turned on she gets. It’s like reverse psychology, where you tell someone to do something and hope they do the opposite. With us, though, I do the opposite of my impulses, for her. Sasha makes sure to show me appreciation—when she’s not ordering me around.

Best Bondage Erotica 2014

Here's an excerpt of "Pegged" by Emily Bingham:

“Do you trust me?” I ask, straddling his lap.

He looks at me with the dark pools of his eyes over the rim of his thick glasses, the hint of a shy grin on his lips. Slowly, he nods, almost as if it pains him to admit it. I take his curly head in my hands and lean in to kiss him. The boy is talented with his tongue, his mouth so inviting that at times it’s easy to get lost in. Part of me wants to be greedy; roll over and let him have his way, splay me open and worship the folds between my legs as long as he likes.

I resist the urge, wanting tonight to be about him and taking him where he wants to go. It’s his turn to be small and defenseless for an evening. I want to be so kind to him that it becomes cruel.

Reader bios and Twitter handles, so you can Tweet to them how much you liked their stories, and She Bop is @SheBopTheShop:

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a writer, editor, event organizer and consultant. She's edited over 50 anthologies, including Hungry for More, The Big Book of Submission, The Big Book of Orgasms, Cheeky Spanking Stories, Fast Girls and edits the Best Bondage Erotica series. She writes widely about sex, dating, books, pop culture and hoarding, teaches erotic writing workshops at colleges, conferences and sex toy stores and Tweets @raquelita.

Emily Bingham is an ethical slut, story teller, consent activist, and rope instructor, she writes smut so she can have an excuse to say filthy words on stage. The only thing she loves more than words is rope. Her stories appear in a number of Cleis Press anthologies. @RopeQuean

Stella Harris is an erotica writer, BDSM educator, and sex & intimacy coach. She teaches for a variety of sex-positive organizations in Portland in addition to leading and organizing her own public classes and offering private instruction. Publication highlights include several anthologies by Cleis Press and a series of tantalizing and informative articles on kinkly.com. @stellaerotica

Laurel Isaac is a queer writer of sex stories and personal essays. She’s currently exploring small-town queer life in Southern Oregon.

Tiffany Reisz is the international bestselling author of the darkly comic Gothic erotica series The Original Sinners, a genre she made up entirely on her own. Tiffany lives in Portland, Oregon, with her boyfriend, her cats and her delusions of grandeur. @TiffanyReisz

How do erotica writers get their inspiration?

I'm asking the contributors to Best Bondage Erotica 2014 exactly that in mini interviews on the book's Tumblr. So far, these writers have answered that question along with their favorite sentence or paragraph from their story (I'll be answering soon about my dom with two subs story "Dual Mastery"):

Lucy Felthouse, author of "Clipped"

Annabeth Leong, author of "Eel"

Elizabeth Coldwell, author of "Wearing Purple"

Kay Jaybee, author of "Behind the Door"

James McArthur, author of "No Strings Attached"

Annabel Joseph, author of "The Neckcloth"

Emily Bingham, author of "Pegged"

BDSM erotica excerpt: Held captive by two men in "Room #3" by Emily Bingham from Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission

This excerpt from "Room #3" by Emily Bingham from Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission needs no introduction because it starts off and grabs the reader, as it does its protagonist!



Previous excerpts: "Shining in the Dark" by Bex vanKoot, "Pinky by Kissa Starling, "I Always Do" by Kiki DeLovely, "The Golden Ruler" by Giselle Renarde, "Safe, Sane and Consensual" by Ariel Graham, "Run, Baby, Run" by Vida Bailey, "The Letter" by Tiffany Reisz part 1 and part 2, "Under Direction" by Teresa Noelle Roberts, "Chattel" by Errica Liekos, "The Coffee Break" by Kristina Wright, "What You Deserve" by Lori Selke and "Subbing" by me.

From "Room #3" by Emily Bingham

The door is barely open a couple of inches before a strong arm is grabbing my wrist to pull me into the room. His fingers grip with a firmness that means I can’t pull away as he twists it behind me and into the small of my back. Using this leverage on my wrist, he pushes me against the wall hard enough to knock the air out of me as he kicks the door closed with a sinister slam.

He locks it, the finality of the clicking of that bolt echoing in the room and my head, a reminder that the time to turn back has come and gone. The moment I knocked on this door, I consented to become his plaything. From here on out I have no say in what will happen. No words are to leave my mouth in this space; I am at his mercy. I can only hope I’ve made a wise choice.

My body is pressed against the cold wall, him leaning into my back, wrenching my wrist at intervals to elicit small pained gasps. Already I’m panting, which makes him chuckle sadistically in my ear. All I can hear is my heart racing and his breath against my neck. He spends what feels like forever enjoying this moment, allowing my adrenaline to build.

I move my head a bit to the side in order to see him. This is a mistake. He grabs my hair with his free hand, the one that until now had been resting tenderly against my waist. My head is pulled at a sharp angle so that all I can see is ceiling. Each breath is a struggle with my head tipped this far back, but at least he has unpinned me from the wall.

With my unbound hand, I ineffectually claw at the fingers in my hair until he takes that limb out of the equation by grasping both my hands in his, now trapped between our bodies and twisted between my shoulder blades. His other hand is on my neck now, a soft lover’s caress, all tenderness and reassurance, a messy contrast to the pain in my shoulders. Even I know what comes next, that he’s messing with my mind, letting me get comfortable before his next move.

Though I’m prepared for the moment his grip on my neck becomes tighter, the suddenness still takes me by surprise. He cradles my head into the crook of his shoulder while very literally holding my breath in his hand. The pressure on my throat means if I hold very still I can get enough air to stay conscious but also requires me to fight the very strong urge to not panic.

You can preorder Serving Him from Amazon and Bn.com. The Kindle ebook edition will be out on February 18th. THANK YOU!