October 20, 2012

Femdom-ish Book Review Round-up October 2012

I started this blog because I found it difficult, or impossible, to get reliable reviews of books that were Femdom, F/m or even just women on top -ish. I still find this a challenge, so I've been thinking that I should highlight what look like reliable reviews or recommendations for books in related areas when I see them. There are also some new releases which come to my attention, which I don't have time to read and review, so perhaps they might appear here too. Whether this will become a regular feature, who knows. Anyhow, all of the following comes with the proviso that I take no responsibility, your mileage may vary, etc. etc.

Her Majesty's Plaything recently posted a review/summary of The Vanilla Dominatrix. HMP did a series of three posts, looking first at the book, then two more considering Her Majesty's thoughts on the book and how The Vanilla Dominatrix relates to the relationship that he is in.

I thought that all of HMP's posts were an interesting reflection on developing real life F/m relationships from vanilla relationships. I'm not sold on the "Vanilla Dominatrix" concept, as it seems rather inflexible - if you only play part time, you're a Vanilla Dominatrix. That seems tantamount to saying "she's not a real domme" and that whole argument is very tedious. I haven't read it, but on balance it seems to me that despite this issue, this book is probably doing a social good. Men pointing out to other men that women are unlikely to be willing to conform to their porn-informed fantasies of a leather clad bitch, but that women to whom they are attracted (strong women who like to take charge) would most likely be willing to give kink a try, seems like a very good thing to me.

In other news, Ariane Arborene published Classic FemDom Stories Volume 3 last month. I haven't read any of her work, but new femdom is always a cause for celebration. :)

Not so recently (alright, a long time ago on the internet), Sarah Frantz from DearAuthor reviewed a couple of Femdom books. Amongst them, The Christmas she Rules. This seems like it's okay, but very short (this is a common gripe that I have about femdom stories. So often they are much too short.) Velvet Submission sounds more like it, and is on my TBR list, with slight reservations. The way that Sarah reviews suggests to me that she probably picks up similar issues to the ones that bother me in stories, and generally DearAuthor reviewers are pretty reliable (for non femdom genres) in my experience.

Have you noticed any recently published femdom books? Or read anything good recently?


2 comments:

  1. If you don't mind me dropping in here;

    ...if you only play part time, you're a Vanilla Dominatrix. That seems tantamount to saying "she's not a real domme"...

    Just to say, that's not actually what the book itself says. I share your distaste for the whole real/not real/one true/etc debate!

    My inspiration is that some Roman ladies owned male slaves for pleasure, but that these ladies were vanilla. It wasn't about owning a slave, but rather using one.

    Both my self help books take the approach, "Forget the fetish, what's in it for her?" If she just treats her partner as a slave, a lot of juicy kink gets generated as a byproduct.

    The part-time theme is important because a lot of Femdom chatter emphasizes FLR etc, and most women aren't really up for that!

    Hope that makes sense...

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    Replies
    1. "If you don't mind me dropping in here;"
      Not at all - you're very welcome.

      "Forget the fetish, what's in it for her?" - This seems like a sensible attitude to take. :)

      "a lot of Femdom chatter emphasizes FLR etc, and most women aren't really up for that!"
      I'm not sure if I accept either of those premises. Wether a lot of Femdom chatter is about FLRs, I wouldn't know. In another post, I suggest that in reality, a lot of women live FLRs. Neither do I really understand the part-time/full-time dichotomy. I don't feel that my private life has set hours like a full-time job does.

      Anyhow, whatever my personal feelings on the details, it's really good to see femdom 'self-help' books advocating ways of conducting a femdom relationship.

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