“The above screenshot comes from an article of The Guardian, which was linked on Twitter. If you have anything to say about trigger warnings, now is your chance. But you might want to read the article first.”

Wow. This is one hell of a Wicked Wednesday prompt. Where, oh where do I start?

Firstly, by saying that I don’t believe in the censorship of books. Period.

Secondly, that I’m well aware that this liberal view of mine comes at a price. There’s no question that there are grotesque things out there in written form, things that I have no interest in reading. Ever. But I know that for freedom of expression to be truly ‘free’, then we must allow writing on all subjects, whether or not they offend us. When we start drawing lines, defining what is and isn’t okay from a personal viewpoint – and, ultimately, all censorship comes down to an individual (or individuals’) own set of judgements and beliefs – we risk getting ourselves into serious trouble: persecution, marginalisation, oppression.

The beauty of freewill is that we get to choose what we read. And what we don’t. You only have to look at the various books that have been banned over the years to see just what a blunt instrument censorship is. It doesn’t understand fine detail, it doesn’t make subtle distinctions. It is wrecking ball that smashes its direct target but also tends to take out everything else within a hundred-mile literary radius.

So, then. Trigger warnings. We’ve all seen them. In fact, it’s actually becoming increasingly difficult to purchase a book without being hit in the face with one. They run the gamut.

From the very simple:

To the incredibly detailed (A.K.A. ‘the entire book in a paragraph’):

To the vaguely humorous:

But if we accept that we’re not going to censor the written word, that we’re going to allow the publication of books of all kinds, regardless of whether we personally abhor or champion the content, shouldn’t we as readers expect to be explicitly warned about potentially distressing content (in the manner of the above) lest we encounter something we’re not prepared to deal with?

Well, no, actually.

Because giving a reader a pre-emptive Get Out of Feeling Free card has the ability to be more harmful than exposing them to potentially controversial content.

If we are only ever advised to read books that detail the safe and happy and benign, are warned away from texts that have the ability to shock, challenge and make us question our beliefs, our conduct – our morality – then are we not devaluing our humanity? Our ability to feel? Our ability to make our own informed choices?

The idea that reading should spare us tough or difficult emotions, that we should live in a perfect bubble where we pretend nothing bad ever happens, frankly, scares the living daylights out of me because it suggests that we could very easily become a society that doesn’t acknowledge or deal with anything difficult. An apathetic human race.

Just think about what that would look like for a second.

I’m personally guilty of using trigger warnings in my own work. Have employed them in the past to alert readers to content that I think they might not be expecting – pseudo non-consent in my short story Frostbite, for example. In writing this post, I’m actually starting to feel a little unsure as to whether I should have done so. My intention was to ‘protect’ readers who may have stumbled across my blog (and thought they were going to get something light and fluffy and ‘floral’) from an unwanted textual encounter. But in using trigger warnings, have I not made assumptions about their expectations? Censored their experience of my writing? Pushed them away and told them that I don’t believe that they’re capable of making a decision about a story’s content for themselves having read the first few lines?

The irony is that I pay little attention to trigger warnings when I’m deciding what I, personally, do and don’t want to read because I’m not prepared to rely on another person’s judgement of a text. I am my own barometer and I’m far, far more concerned with writing quality, an engaging story and an author’s ability to engage my head and my heart. My emotions.

It’s our reactions to books to books that count.

Hate.
Compassion
Distress.
Peace.
Anger.
Love.

These are normal human feelings. And we shouldn’t be warned away from them.

The post Wicked Wednesday: Pulling the trigger appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Soft limits, hard limits, personal boundaries, personal fears. It doesn’t matter if we’re kinky or vanilla, every single one of us has things that we’re comfortable and not comfortable doing sexually; lines that we don’t want crossed, things that we adore doing. And it’s most certainly the case that one person’s ‘hell no!’ is another person’s ‘hell yes!’ That’s a good thing. If we were all the same, life and sex would be terribly boring. What intrigues me, however, is how our comfort levels and perceptions of what we do and don’t like, can and can’t tolerate, can – and often do – change over time.

Now, before I go any further with this train of thought, I’d just like to make it really, really clear that hard limits should always, ALWAYS be respected. No exceptions. They are not there to be pushed. They are not there to be ‘broken though’. A hard limit is a prohibition, a definite no-no. End of story. And a hard limit remains so until such time as the person whose limit it is chooses of their own volition and without coercion for it not to be.

Public service announcement out of the way, let’s continue.

One of things that I am coming to realise the longer I explore my sexuality is that the devil is very much in the detail. And the gulf between the aforementioned ‘hell yes!’ and my safeword is actually much wider than I originally thought. Not because I’ve been sloppy in articulating what I’m okay with and what I’m not or because I’m getting kinkier (I don’t think I am) but because identifying the things that arouse is a bit like going off to explore the jungle. You take your map with you and it defines the terrain you’re going to cover, but the route you follow to your destination often ends up revealing a multitude of alternate trails and tracks that you just have to go back and explore. And on occasion, those offshoots lead you to places you originally sought to avoid.

Some time back, I discovered that I had an aversion to prickly sensations, thanks to that devilish little device, the Wartenberg Wheel. This instrument isn’t a hard limit for me but holy crap is it something to be endured. For whatever reason, my mind has no problem with the pain generated by the sting of a crop, but it cannot seem to climb on top of the sensation a Wartenberg elicits, even when used very, very lightly. It’ll come as no surprise, then, that my experiences with it led me to believe that sharp things, other than that barely tolerated little terror tool, belonged on my hard limit list. (You should see the performance when I get a splinter and M has to hook it out for me with a needle. You’d think he was hacking my foot off with a rusty axe.)

Then I read something the other week that made me think I need to re-examine my feelings. It was an intensely erotic edgeplay scene from Cherise Sinclair’s latest book Edge of the Enforcer between a sadist named deVries and a non-masochistic sub. In a nutshell, said sadist restrains said sub on a kitchen counter using her half-removed jeans, throws a tea towel over her eyes, and then proceeds to utilise the knives in the butcher’s block for something other than cooking.

“I like being called Sir. Master works once in a while.”

“Sir, you wouldn’t really–”

“Shut up, babe.” He touched the point of the knife to her nipple. Just so she could feel the point – not nearly enough to draw blood.

Her pounding pulse jiggled her little breasts, and she was hardly breathing. Nice. Just right.

He laid the hilt on her stomach and positioned the hefty bare blade between her breasts. “You planning to move?”

Her no was so low he barely heard it.

“Didn’t think so. Gonna have some fun now … Warning, babe, you wriggle and I’ll amuse myself with the blade instead.”

You get the idea.

As the scene progresses deVries gets more wicked. There’s some light scratching. Some pretty evil head-screwing. And while I wasn’t so sold on the rest of the novel, I read this scene three times in quick succession because something in it was shouting ‘HOT!’ at me very, very loudly; making the kinky part of my brain sit up and go ‘Hmmm’.

I’m still not absolutely sure what it is about it that’s appealed to me so deeply. I’ve read edgeplay scenes involving knives before and, while I’ve appreciated them and the sentiment and psychology behind them – Maren Smith’s Holding Hannah, for example – it’s definitely been a case of YKINMK. Perhaps it’s the delivery, the way the scene is carried out rather than the implement(s) used in it? The way Lindsey, the sub, is blindfolded so crudely? The way she is restrained? Whatever the appeal, I do know that it is making me think very, very hard about what exactly it is I don’t like about the Wartenberg. My current ponderings suggest that my exclusion of ‘sharp things’ during play may have been far too broad. And this is where I come back to my ‘it’s all in the detail’ statement. A prickle is very different to a scratch, just as the thwack of a flogger is very different to the bite of cane. It seems so obvious in hindsight that the two sensations are really quite different beasts and yet I’ve been lumping them together into the same bucket.

It just shows that the brain doesn’t always see what’s obvious.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had such a reaction to a bit of text, either. If you read my post The Violet Wand Diaries: Part One, you’ll know that my curiosity around electrical play sparked off (sorry, couldn’t help myself) in much the same way. It just goes to show that context and delivery have a huge role to how we perceive various kinks.

Even more interestingly, M, who, like me, doesn’t tend towards edgeplay, read this scene at my request – after initially taking a step backwards at my pre-read CliffsNotes overview – and had a very similar reaction to it, albeit from a Top rather than a bottom perspective. Clearly, something in what is described is calling out to both of us, perhaps tapping into an undercurrent in our play that we’re both unaware of. Go figure. He’s not a sadist. I’m not keen on sharp things. And yet we both read a scene involving both and go ‘ooh!’

I sense a boundary shift on the horizon.

*Since writing this post, I have been keeping an eye on the reviews for Edge of the Enforcer on Amazon and Goodreads and am intrigued to see just how many people have responded the same way I did to the play in it given that it has a relatively mainstream readership. In the words of one reviewer:

“I have to admit, I’ve never been into edge play, but the mindfvck [sic] of the knife play scene was seriously steamy.”

You can read various the various reviews here (Goodreads) and here (Amazon).

The post Edges, Limits and Boundaries appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Image: “We have it rich.” Washing and panning gold, Rockerville, Dak., John C. H. Grabill [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Is anything ever truly original? Have we already explored every unique avenue, theme and possibility when it comes to creative content? In art? In writing?

I believe that someone who is inherently creative will always manage to show us something new. Will demand that we look at things in a different way or engage us in a manner we never expected. Which is why I think the self-publishing movement is so important: not only does it give writers permission to take risks – those that a traditional publishing house would deem unacceptable – it also allows them to explore themes that may not be in vogue or are ‘off brand’.

Self-publishing gives writers who would otherwise have been marginalised the opportunity to be noticed. To have a voice. To be heard. Often, it is those on the fringes who have the most important and interesting things to tell us.

However, all that said, I am beginning to notice a somewhat frustrating and interesting irony: the very vehicle responsible for giving us exciting and innovative reading material is also responsible for giving us a load of same old, same old. A plethora of stories that stay well within the tracks of those that have gone before them, break no new ground whatsoever, and look like they’ve been edited in crayon by my eight-year-old. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to call this phenomenon ‘theme flood’. (Aquatic references ahoy-hoy!)

So what do I mean by this, exactly?

Well, basically that there’s an increasing deluge of stories in the erotic romance genre based around the same themes, the same types of characters, the same plot structures. To the point that I’m finding it increasingly difficult to identify books that I want to write reviews for. Why would I want to push you all towards a story you’ve already read, albeit in a slightly different guise, a billion times before? One that’s poorly written and edited at that?

I read constantly, although I’d estimate that about five percent of the books I actually consume make it onto Chintz. Quite simply, I don’t tend to write reviews for novels I don’t like. At least, not unless they really (really) tick me off in some way and I can’t contain my angst. But even that five percent has been squeezed over the past year as I struggle to find variety and diversity. One of the negatives of self-publishing, I am discovering, is its ability to push onto the market a veritable tsunami of books that regurgitate, again and again, a raft of flavour-of-the-month themes. Something starts to sell well, garners a few five-star reviews and everyone’s on the proverbial bandwagon. I get that writing is a job just like any other and that people are publishing to make money. And that self-publishing means that anyone – anyone – can get their book out there. I do. But I really, really wish there was some way of better filtering content so that the gold can be extracted from the dross.

Am I being whiny? Yeah. But at the time of writing there seems to be absolutely no escaping erotic romance books that revolve around the following themes and it’s driving me nucking futts:

• Bikers (everyone wants a bit literary Jax Teller);
• Tattooists (buttoned-up businessmen, ala Christian Grey, are out; inked-up boys with street cred are in)
• Mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters (can’t decide whether Warrior or Fighting is to blame)
• College girls going on holiday and getting kidnapped by a human trafficking ring (stories attempting – and badly – to emulate dark erotica fare such as Comfort Food and Captive in the Dark)
• Rock stars (especially those behaving like Guns ‘n’ Roses did back in the 90s)
• Angsty male leads who’re mindlessly screwing everything on two legs (of the female variety at least), have anger management problems, and are coping with some sort of personal tragedy. Enter saving grace female lead. (This theme pretty much accounts for everything in the load of bollocks ‘New Adult’ category that seems to be creepily infecting online bookstore after online bookstore. It’s the literary equivalent of a bloody chlamydia epidemic).

Whereas twelve months ago I would have taken a punt on a book based on its blurb and reviews, the ‘download sample’ and ‘excerpt’ functions have now become indispensible in relation to my eBook purchases. That one chapter – thank God – has been instrumental in preventing me from spending my cash on literary mediocrity. If you’re not using these features – and, thankfully, a number of eTailers offer them – you should be.

Romance novels and erotic stories are often described as formulaic by those who turn their noses up at such ‘low brow fare’: a love story is just a love story and sex is just sex; no real meat – boy meets girl, Part A slots into Part B, right? Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Authors writing in these categories break new ground and push boundaries in exactly the same way that writers in other genres do. And it is my sincere hope that as the self-publishing market matures, we’re better able to identify the writers and the stories that are doing so.

If you’re a writer reading this? I implore you: go where no man hath gone before. I – and a lot of other readers out there – will love you for it. (Just make sure you use a copy editor.)

The post Gold and Dross, A.K.A. more and more (and more) of the same appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

In the middle of all this chaos, however, I’ve just received some extremely exciting news: my short story, Thorn King, will be appearing in Cleis Press’s naughty fairy tale anthology, A Princess Bound, in June 2014. Woot! Edited by Kristina Wright, it’s a fabulous collection of fairy stories – both reworked and original – that celebrate the fanciful, dark and the sensual. Needless to say, I’m totally thrilled to have been included, not least because I’m going to be sliding between the covers with some very fine writers, including Kristina herself.

Like your stories erotic and kinky? Of course you do. So I’m going to shamelessly self promote and tell you to check it out.

Face it, fairy tales were always kind of kinky: from beautiful queens tied up in knots by wicked sorcerers to a wide variety of naughty and nice scenarios. Someone was always getting tied to a bed! In this new anthology of erotic romance fairy tales from the editor of the best-selling Fairy Tale Lust and Lustfully Ever After, the fairy tales are naughtier and have a BDSM twist. Retellings of the classics are joined with clever original tales, making for a darkly sensual and intensely romantic collection. Cathy Yardley, author of Crave: The Seduction of Snow White, introduces this compilation of enticing out-of-this-world erotic romance.

 

– Blurb courtesy of Cleis Press

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to purchase a copy:

• A Princess Bound: Naughty Fairy Tales for Women – Amazon.co.uk
• A Princess Bound: Naughty Fairy Tales for Women – Amazon.com

The post A Princess Bound: Naughty Fairy Tales for Women appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Madeline Sheehan’s Hell’s Horsemen. Joanna Wylde’s Reapers.

Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy.

Every so often, a genre will send me on a complete and utter bender. I find something that strikes a chord and that’s it; for as long as I can find the reading material (or in this case, the celluloid) to feed the addiction, I’m a total junkie.

A few weeks back, I bought Madeline Sheehan’s Undeniable, the first book in her series about a biker club known as Hell’s Horsemen. It was, loosely speaking, a romance, but a brutal one. There were a lot of things in it that morally and ethically I didn’t agree with (the treatment of the women, the sanctioning of criminal activity) but the bottom line? It was like my eyes were super-glued to the train-wrecking pages.

Murder? Check.
Extreme violence? Check.
Abuse? Check.
Completely dysfunctional relationships between the characters? Check.
A happy ending? Eh. Well, Eva and Deuce are still breathing at the close.

In short, I haven’t buried myself in a book the way I did with Undeniable for quite a long while. I liked that it wasn’t a conventional romance. That it didn’t colour inside the lines. That I was kind of disgusted with myself for cheering the bad guys. I went and downloaded the second instalment in the series, Unbeautifully (which turned out to be just as compelling), the second I’d finished reading. When I hit the end of that one, though, my genre thirst was in full swing, the need for more of the same clawing at me like a hungry crow. Cue online searches for decent comparable material. My next stop? Joanna Wylde’s Reaper’s Property. More tattooed bad guys on bikes doing, once again, not very nice things. While a lot softer and not quite as deep and textured as Madeline Sheehan’s two offerings, it did go some way to quenching the thirst.

Then the discovery to end all discoveries: Sons of Anarchy.

There’s no denying I’m more of a reader than a TV-watcher but, holy shit, I can’t seem to tear myself away from this thing. It’s everything that made the Hell’s Horsemen books so compelling and then some. Sons is far more stylish, the characters infinitely more engaging, the plot lines far wilder. (Given that the series began in 2008 and is five seasons deep already, I’d be very surprised if it didn’t have at least some influence on Madeline Sheehan’s series, which debuted in October last year). Aided and abetted by Netflix, which is loaded seasons-deep with the lure of episode cliff-hangers to battle against on a daily basis, I’ve been roaring through five-years’ worth of biker drama with barely a pause for breath. The last series I had this kind of obsession with? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I can recall being heavily pregnant during a re-run season and telling my husband I couldn’t go into labour until after Tubula Rasa, the one in which Buffy and Spike finally hook up, aired. (Yeah, yeah. I know.) Let’s just say that if Sons of Anarchy had been on then, I suspect I would have been 10 months along.

I think what’s pulled me so deeply with this show is the strength of the leading characters. Gemma Teller (played brilliantly by Katey Sagal of Married … with Children fame) is one of the best anti-heroines I’ve come across in a long time and Jax, who plays her son, the perfect knife-edge balance of criminal, bad boy, and gentleman. That deliciously unholy mix of dirty hands and good heart. The cast of slightly eccentric supporting characters is no less engaging. Tig (who reminds me in a lot of ways of Mr Blonde from Reservoir Dogs), the corrupt and completely loveable Chief Unser … they all add to the unusual (and sometimes unsavoury) SOA flavour. It’s not as tightly plotted as, say, The Sopranos, but the rawness of the Sons of Anarchy draws like a magnet. Oh, and the music? Well, this girl’s a die-hard rock chick and there are some beautiful, beautiful originals and covers to go with the drama (see my title clip choice), although I wish the sound team would stop plaything thrashy rock whenever the Sons ride down the highway.

I will nearly always push a book over a TV programme. But I’m going to break my rule for Sons of Anarchy.

In the words of Neil Young: Hey hey, my my.

Need an MC fix? Pick your poison …

• Sons of Anarchy – Amazon.co.uk
• Sons of Anarchy – Amazon.com
• Undeniable – Amazon.co.uk
• Undeniable – Amazon.com
• Unbeautifully – Amazon.co.uk
• Unbeautifully – Amazon.com
• Reaper’s Property – Amazon.co.uk
• Reaper’s Property – Amazon.com

The post The Crow Flies Straight – A Sam Crow Love Affair appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

TOYS AND LINGERIE

Agent Provocateur
AP is one of my favourite, favourite under-thing brands but at full-price their stuff, while beautiful, is death on the old wallet. This is definitely the time to buy. These corset-style Ilya Big Briefs? Reduced from £110 to £55.  This Mercy Waspie? £185 to £95. These Syble tie-side knickers (similar to the ones I wore in my Sinful Sunday pic a while back)? Reduced to £35 from £65.

Coco de Mer
Is offering up to 50% off selected items, including lingerie, bondage/fetish wear and sex toys. There are some beautiful, beautiful items in this sale, including FYI’s Binding Briefs (£64.00), the Coco de Mer Jade Petite Rosebud Small Butt Plug (£60.00), the DL & Co Lady Rhubarb Ombre Collection Scented Candle (£32.00) and this beautiful Crystal Flogger from Bo’s Tit Bits (£98.00).

Figleaves
Loads and loads of sizes and styles to choose from in this one. The Midnight Grace underwired smoothing slip is now £32. £6.40 for a pair of Butterfly Blue flirty frill ruffle mesh shorts (very cute cut at the rear!) Elle MacPherson Intimates Desert Heat Torsolette? Reduced from £75 to £45.

EBOOKS

As ever, the following books were listed as free at the time of this post’s publication. Please double-check that that’s still the case before you hit the download button.

Secret Story Time: More Filthy Fantasies – Jason Jaxx

• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com 

Threesomes, spanking and fantasy. Absolutely no idea what the writing is like in this one but the ratings seem to be positive.

‘A compilation of erotic tales, packed with sizzling, unrelenting, graphic action. Explicit erotica designed for providing pleasure featuring threesomes, spanking, fantasy, and enough hot sex to satisfy a variety of tastes.’

A Bit of Bite – Cynthia Eden

• Kobo ePub 

Paranormal romance rather than erotica but Cynthia Eden is a popular author so I suspect that the quality of the writing in this short (it’s 11,000 words long) will be half-way decent.

‘A killer is stalking the streets of Crossroads, Mississippi, and it’s up to Sheriff Ava Dushaine to stop him. But when suspicion falls on werewolf alpha Julian Kasey—Ava’s ex-lover and the man who still haunts her dreams—Ava knows that she’ll either have to prove his innocence…or watch the whole town go up in flames.’

The Business of Pleasure – Justine Elyot

• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com 

I’ve read this one before and can thoroughly, thoroughly recommend it. The writing is excellent and the sexual encounters in it are hot, hot, hot. Make sure you have some, er, relief handy.

‘If one call could set you on a trail to the heart of your darkest fantasy, would you make it? Charlotte does, and her bold decision propels her into a world where no desire is too outrageous, decadent or extravagant to be satisfied, for a price. Her own fantasy life merges with reality when she is hired to work for the shadowy organisation she first encountered as a client. She organises an array of wild set pieces involving banquets, film productions, mansions full of pleasure slaves, as well as thoroughly researching those requests that chime with her own kinky tastes. Two men, one woman, and every sexual fantasy imaginable, these are the ingredients that make up the business of pleasure.’

Wishing you all a wonderful, sexy weekend.

Jane xxx

The post Freebies and discounts: half-price lingerie and The Business of Pleasure appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

[Magic blog time-lapse technology]

Couldn’t do it? Eh, don’t sweat it. Seems they’re in pretty short supply.

I am flat-chested. And when I say ‘flat chested’, I don’t mean small hillock, gala apple, or half an orange. I mean like a blackboard. Little House on the Prairie flat. As a teenager, it used to bother me a lot. All the girls around me wore bras, filled out their tops and generally had the whole womanly shape thing going on. Me? Let’s just say there wasn’t (and still isn’t) much between me and an ironing board.

These days I’m perfectly fine with my flatness but there’s no denying that, as a society, we’re pretty damn obsessed with breasts. And, as far as the media is concerned, if you’re not sporting a pair of perfectly-shaped D cups then you might as well pack up and go home. Much to my dismay, however, it seems that the big-breasted ideal has set up shop and commenced trading in a lot of romantic and erotic fiction, too.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed more and more authors eschewing the cookie-cutter perfect body – and quite rightly! – in favour of heroines with more realistic body shapes and sizes but, invariably, they seem to draw the line at women with non-existent breasts. It’s okay to have relatable heroines with flaws, it seems, as long as you can make up for the latter with a great rack. In fact, I can only think of one book off the top of my head that specifically calls attention to the leading lady’s small boobs and that’s Rachel Gibson’s See Jane Score (incidentally, one of my favourite mainstream romances). Oh, and Beth from Cherise Sinclair’s Breaking Free (although she doesn’t seem to be quite as flat as Jane).

Interweb and Amazon searches for ‘heroines with small breasts’ aren’t particularly helpful in turning up ladies with more economical assets either, although this thread and this one have a good bash at it. I wonder, is a small chest really that difficult to write about? Are they that difficult to view as beautiful and sexual? Not always, it seems. Tamsin Flowers, God bless her, recently told me she was writing a short (not yet published) titled Cherries on Top which specifically focuses on an erotic encounter with a woman who is a little challenged in the chest department – and was even kind enough to send me a wee teaser:

‘They used to sing it to me in the schoolyard; you know, the old taunt, “Flat as a pancake with cherries on top!” Over and over again.  So I was flat chested?  So the fuck what!  And as for cherries on top? Some girls were lucky; I was looking down on two tiny nubs that were closer in size to a pair of red currants. I hated the other girls for it but at least back then I thought there was still a chance I might grow a pair. I would sit through lessons with my pencil case stuffed up my T-shirt, resting it on crossed arms and hoping it would somehow morph into an actual part of me.’

Tamsin, can I just say I can’t wait to read this rest of this. It gladdens my little heart that you’ve written it.

So ladies and gents: am I alone here? Do you want to read an erotica or romances that feature heroines who are a little lacking in the chest department? Have you read a good one that you could tell me about? Or is there, perhaps, another ‘non ideal’ body type or part that you’d like to see appearing more frequently in the books you read?

The post Flat-chested heroines appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

He’d just started reading a new BDSM-themed erotica (which shall remain nameless) and made the fatal mistake of giving me an overview of the first chapter. All was going well until he mentioned the dreaded word ‘contract’, at which point he found himself engulfed in a storm of virtual babble – okay, ranting – that probably made him extremely thankful that we live in different countries and therefore ensured he didn’t have to listen to it in person (sorry, Michael):

‘Wow, that’s a lot of information in a single chapter! But do you know what my eye went straight to? The mention of another bloody contract! Contracts, contracts, contracts! If one more author writes about a contract I am going to … Well, I don’t know what, but it will likely involve a judge’s gavel being used on the offending book in the same manner that Basil Fawlty uses that tree branch on his car.’

And just in case that last reference is a British ‘in’ joke (I’m not sure how many countries had Fawlty Towers), this is what I’m talking about:

Attention authors! I don’t want to read about legal documents! They don’t turn me on! You do not need one to convey that your characters are in a relationship that involves power exchange. Really. You don’t. Just as villains don’t need to be dressed in black in order to convey their ‘badness’ and heroes in ‘white’ to denote their ‘goodness’, people who engage in BDSM aren’t all running off willy-nilly to their lawyers and defining their relationships through legalese. And if I was that desperate to get off on legal jargon I’d visit the solicitor in my local village and get him to lend me a conveyancing agreement.

I WANT WELL-CRAFTED EROTICA – NOT PAGES OF CLAUSES.

My husband does not take me to bed and spout legal jargon to get me in the mood. Nor does he make me read the folder of deeds to our house.

I am not saying that contracts – not to be confused with limit lists and negotiation forms – don’t exist in power exchange relationships. I am sure they do and that they work perfectly well for those who draw them up. But having one is not mandatory and, as Molly Moore said so eloquently in her Myth Busting: the Submissive Woman seminar at Eroticon earlier this month, if they are used, they ‘are rarely a standard rent agreement’.

I think we all know who, or rather what, we have to blame for this bat-sh*t obsession with ‘erotic’ paperwork. Yes, That Book. That great, grey brick of a thing whose name I dare not speak, because, frankly, it’s becoming a little bit like Voldemort:

‘Who gave you that scar?’

‘E.L. bloody James with all her talk of legal agreements and protagonists who have to be ‘damaged’ to engage in BDSM, that’s who.’

If only I had an Elder Pen to wave – or perhaps an Unforgiveable Manuscript Curse to make all this silliness disappear. (What would that be called, I wonder? Editora Kedavra?)

Hmm. Maybe I should recreate the Basil Fawlty moment above with a copy of You-Know-What and a nice, long rattan can. If only my technical skills were up to the job and I could get over the idea of destroying a perfectly good book.

It’s tempting, though. Very, very tempting …

The post I do not get turned on by legal jargon appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Image: Lupa – Julo (own work)

Since July of last year:

• Thirty-five book reviews.
• Fourteen Garden of Earthly Delights episodes [*please note these are no longer available on the blog].
• Three five-minute erotica stories.
• Twenty-eight sex toy reviews and countless other sex toy references.

As I’ve added more and more reviews and articles to Chintz, I’ve become increasingly aware that it’s more difficult for visitors to find what they want quickly. Chances are, if you’re diving into the Toy Box or Words sections, you want to know what’s in them without having to scroll through all the pages.

Behold.

Two hyperlinked lists to make your Chintz navigation life easier: the Toy Box Index and the Words Index.

You can find the relevant links to them at the very tops of the Words and Toy Box pages, or simply scroll down to access them via the Behind the Chintz Curtain footer. (The plan is to update the indexes every time a relevant post is added, but you’ll have to forgive me if there’s a short delay.)

For now, I’m leaving out Alert Me posts and Toy with me Tuesday entries, but I may add these in over the coming weeks, too. We’ll see how things go.

Here’s hoping that these indexes make finding your way around Behind the Chintz Curtain quicker and simpler.

The post For the love of an index appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

I’ve read some fabulous books over the past few days – including Cherri Lynn’s Leave me Breathless and Riley Murphy’s Reclaimed Surrender (reviews ahoy-hoy) – and also managed to pen another episode of The Garden of Earthly Delights [*no longer available on the blog], so expect to see a bit of a focus on books and writing in the next few Chintz posts.

More toy reviews in the pipeline, too – and perhaps some new reviewers …

The post Onwards! More books, more writing, more toys appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.