April 29, 2013

Femdom-ish Books Round-up: February/March/April 2013

This edition of the round up is a sort of bonus, condensed version, because my pesky offline life has been in the way recently. Normal-ish service will may be resumed soon.

Femdom releases I've seen this month recently since last time I did a round up include For Her Pleasure by new-ish author Kyoko Church. This is a romp of a story from a submissive male's pov, with stacks of humiliation. My review is here.

Under her Thumb is an anthology edited by D.L. King. This was a March release and features many familiar names, including the the blogosphere's own Her Majesty's Plaything.

In terms of publishers, my attention was drawn (by a commenter I think) to Circlet Press. Their tag line is: The Intersection of Erotica and Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Futurism. There is a lot of BDSM and a good amount of that seems to be F/m or F/m/m/M or M/F/f/m/trans or - well, you get the idea. I suspect that you can expect quite a lot of sexy, extreme craziness, so if that's what rolls you then you should head over. There isn't any sort of helpful sorting system on their website, so unfortunately you have to read through all the blurbs.


Just published in April is Still by Ann Mayburn. This is book one of three and I'm pretty excited about the idea of femdom series. So much to look forward to! Also - check out the cover with the man tied up with blue rope. <le sigh> I like the trend towards tied up men or women's high heels on the covers of femdom books.  I know that neither is exactly breaking any paradigms, but imho they're more suggestive of a being aimed at female audience compared to women in pvc/leather corsets with whips, which always seem to me to be aimed at submissive men.

It's not a book, but head over to submissive guy comics on tumblr and check out Femdom cartoons. They're cute, touching, hilarious and true reflections on BDSM and F/m. I am totally obsessed by them already. Why are you still here? Go!

April 21, 2013

Review: For Her Pleasure by Kyoko Church

There is a lot to love about this book. It's difficult to find well done humiliation fantasy and Church makes bold decisions in this book and makes them work. Despite the title though, this is more 'humiliation is a hot game for her amusement' than 'surrender is a gift for her pleasure'.

Colin sees Mistress at a sexual harassment in the workplace meeting (irony applied with a spade, yes?) and she has that psychic knowledge that some Dominant women (in fantasy) have and knows that he's a horny little submissive. Joan wastes no time in having him confess to his most mortifying secret: he's a premature ejaculator. Deliciously embarrassing scene after scene follows. This book doesn't skimp on the humiliation. Joan heaps it on. Knickers, denial (no chastity device though <sad face>), teasing, public revealing acts. All of that, and it's a lot of horny submissive fun. It's written first person from Colin (Sub Peter)'s perspective, which gives the embarrassment quite a nice immediate feeling.

But.... Ah, you knew there was a but coming right? (Puns aside...)  There are a couple of things that didn't work for me, which are the kind of thing that I think some people will find difficult. As ever though, these are spoilers.

***Spoilers***
Colin has a wife, Anne, whom he loves. And although his relationship with Joan doesn't involve penetrative sex, Anne is realistically furious and hurt when she finds out. So... I'm not keen on cheating as a scenario, but plus points for not belittling it and having Anne immediately join in like some sort of Femdom fantasy automaton. The way the story develops from here is interesting, but again doesn't shy away from controversy. Anne teams up with Joan - they both care for Colin and Anne seems genuinely interested in saving their marriage. But when Colin walks in on Joan and Anne, he thinks that they're ganging up against him rather than teaming up for him, so runs off and calls Joan's best friend. He goes over to her place and comes over all 'rah and manly', beginning to fuck her over the sofa. He begins to cry (I suppose that this is supposed to indicate that he really is submissive <rolls eyes>).

Joan is understandably upset, but somehow, Colin seems to be such a wonderful person and submissive, she gives him another chance. So we skip to the epilogue, and Anne and Joan have been successfully team dominating Colin and he's a happy submissive puppy. If only it ended there. For me, this next bit was a WTF moment. All the way through, there have been bits in italics from a female perspective. First it seems as if they are Joan, then Anne. They don't really add much to the story, so I didn't pay much attention to them. In the epilogue, they come to fruition. It's Joan's best friend who is obsessed with Colin and thinks that Joan and Anne are forcing him to be submissive. So she turns up at Joan's with a gun - as you do - to 'free' him. Anyhow, it turns out okay, except that Anne didn't know that Colin had (attempted to have) sex with her, and is pretty pissed. So the book finishes with Joan assuring Colin that Anne will come round. So there's no HFN and I'm not sure he deserves one.
***End spoilers***

So in summary: The plot is eye rollingly silly and not for those who are looking for any integrity in their male submissive. Neither of those things are unique to this story, so I know I sound like a broken record. Apologies. The sexy humiliation is uber fun. So, yeh, overall there's a lot to like in this book. I think it's a B-. That grade that says, there's really good bits. But depending on what presses your 'Oh for fuck sake' buttons, there might also be things that you're not going to like.