On Being a Feminist Writing Dirty Kinky Porn

So, I write porn. Most of my porn is kinky. Most of my kinky porn is female-submissive. And most of my female-submissive kinky porn is opposite-sex, male-dominated. I’ve just come out with a collection of my smut — excuse me, erotic fiction — “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More” (available as an ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords; audiobook and paperback coming soon). And while the book has lesbian kink, bisexual kink, gay male kink, fem-dom/ male-sub kink, unicorn-dom/ rainbow-sub kink, and even some non-kink, it’s true that women being spanked, beaten, controlled, used, objectified, humiliated, punished, and generally overpowered by men in dreadful dreadful ways is a dominating theme. (I know. Terrible pun.)

Also, I’m a feminist. An ardent one at that.

So what’s that about? And how do I reconcile it? Is there even anything to reconcile?

I know that when 50 Shades of Gray went viral, pundits from all over the pundit-sphere were racking their brains trying to figure out why all these ladies were so hot to read kinky porn about a woman getting sexually pushed around. I’ve written my own convoluted analysis: not about 50 Shades per se, I haven’t read it and probably won’t, but about the general trend of female-penned, female-submissive porn. But the more I think about this question, the more I think that we may be overthinking it.

I think the question may not be, “Why do women want to fantasize about being submissive?” I think the question may be, “Why do people want to fantasize about being submissive?”

*****

Bending cover
To read the rest of my essay, go to On Being a Feminist Writing Dirty Kinky Porn, my guest post on Erotica For All.

Here’s the deal: I’ve been doing a blog tour for my new erotic fiction collection, “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.” Today’s installment in the tour is a guest post I wrote for Erotica For All, On Being a Feminist Writing Dirty Kinky Porn: a feminist perspective on male-dominant female-submissive kinky porn, with thoughts on why some women enjoy consuming and creating it, and how it might fit into feminism.

And remember — the book is currently available as an ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. Audiobook and paperback are coming soon!

Previous stops on this blog tour:

6/3:
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Is Erotic Shame Real Shame? (guest post by me)
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)

Ozy Frantz has taken down their blog. These posts have now been reprinted on my own blog:
Is Erotic Shame “Real” Shame? (essay)
Excerpt from Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)

6/4:
Brute Reason: Greta Christina on Writing Dirty Stories (interview with Miri)

6/5:
Lusty Lady, Rachel Kramer Bussell: Excerpt from Craig’s List (extended excerpt)

6/7:
Charlie Glickman’s Blog: “Discover just how far sexy goes” (brief review/ blurb)

6/10:
WWJTD? JT Eberhard: On Being an Atheist Writing Religious Porn, plus Excerpt from Penitence as a Perpetual Motion Machine (guest post by me, plus extended excerpt)

6/12:
Passions and Provocations, Pam Rosenthal (a.k.a. Molly Weatherfield): How to Read a Remarkable Work of Erotica (review/ essay)

6/13:
Curvacious Dee’s Blog: Bent Fiction, plus Excerpt from Doing It Over (review, plus extended excerpt)

6/13:
Susie Bright’s Journal: Pain, Kink, Shame — and a Unicorn Chaser. Greta Christina’s New Erotic Epic! (brief review and extended excerpt from The Shame Photos

6/14:
En Tequila Es Verdad, Dana Hunter’s blog: Why Is Kink Fun? (guest post by me)

6/18:
Under His Hand, Kaya’s blog: Excerpt from This Week (extended excerpts)

6/19:
Heina, Skepchick: Why Atheists Say “God” When They Have Sex (essay)

6/21:
Girl on the Net: Someone else’s story (essay/review)

6/23:
Trollop Salon, Alison Tyler’s interview blog: Greta Christina is in the Salon! (interview plus excerpt)

6/25:
io9: How to Write a Sex Scene Between a Unicorn and a Rainbow (guest post)

6/27:
Maggie Mayhem’s blog: 5 Things That Piss Off This Godless Pervert (guest post)

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On Being a Feminist Writing Dirty Kinky Porn
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7 thoughts on “On Being a Feminist Writing Dirty Kinky Porn

  1. 2

    Curious; where do you see people who aren’t female, writing female submission porn, fitting into this?

    Azkyroth @ #1: I don’t have a problem with it. Everyone has a right to their fantasies. (And if there weren’t dominant straight-or-bi men, where would that leave all the submissive straight women? 🙂 )

    And I don’t think you have to be female to be feminist. I’m very interested in how feminist straight-or-bi men who are sexually dominant experience their sexuality, and I want to read about it.

  2. 3

    I had (have) my own opinions about why the female submissive “porn” is not in contradiction with feminism. You brought a bit more nuance to my beliefs. I suppose that my opinions on the subject vaguely implied what you wrote, but I hadn’t actively, consciously thought of it that way.

    My own opinion may be wrong, but it is something I’ve put some thought into.

    The crux of it is this: female submission is, at least for women, about trust (unless I’m completely mistaken). The ultimate form of trust. It is given, freely and willingly in these fantasies. And that trust is vindicated, affirmed instead of taken advantage of (as is often the case in reality). As you said, women aren’t objects. They’re the subjects. They are the centerpiece of the action. They are not forced to do anything. They place their trust in their partner (male, in this conversation) to satisfy their needs, to treat them well, to take care of them.

    Another thought, which is more of a fun exercise, is that I’m sure that if you were to use some kind of psychoanalysis, you could say that women, by writing about these fantasies (and reading about them), are re-framing their fears in a context that gives them control and power by placing them in an ideal world (situation).

    Does all of that make sense?

  3. 4

    Personally, my (not exactly BDSM-themed, but still kind of relevant) fantasies were more female-submissive when I was younger and found my sexual urges kind of scary and disturbing, then grew more female-dominant when I grew comfortable with my sexuality. I imagine some of the popularity of Fifty Shades of Gray et al comes from the fact that in a society where women’s sexuality is largely frowned upon, it seems easier to fantasize about submission, where what’s happening is out of your direct control – where sexual desire is dirty, it’s less dirty to pretend it’s not about your desire.

    But when I do have female-submissive fantasies today, I find the same thing you do – they tend to revolve elaborately about the woman’s desire to be dominated, what she decides to do about it, and how it feels for her to have it fulfilled. (From what I’ve read of Fifty Shades of Gray, it seems to make a point of how the main character doesn’t in fact desire domination, she just wants this guy who happens to be dominant so she deals with the submission thing as part of that – another reason I suspect it’s the repressed-sexuality version of female submission fantasy.)

  4. 5

    Another thing – when judging works of fiction, I find it hugely more important on the feminist front whether the women are written realistically as complex people with their own thoughts and desires and flaws than what is actually happening to them in the narrative. A woman written as a real person isn’t objectified by the story, even if the story is about her being objectified by other characters. And even when you write about women being outright victims, they’re achingly human. Feminism is the radical notion that women are people, not that they must always be in control and nothing bad must happen to them.

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