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Safeword: RainbowTitle: Safeword: Rainbow (2013 Extended Edition)
Author: Candace Blevins
Publisher: Excessica (30 October 2013)
ISBN: 9781609827717
Reviewer: Michael

The original version of Safeword: Rainbow was published back in 2010. At the end of 2013, however, author, Candace Blevins, released a revised and updated version of the book. Michael read the first iteration and gave it four stars on Goodreads; has this new, extended edition answered some of his original questions (Tyler always worried him a little) or simply made him more curious about his relationship with Viv?

 

MICHAEL

Let me tell you a quick fairy tale to start things off.

Once upon a time, in the Magical Land of New Hampshire, a dark and secretive Master named James finds the slave girl he’s been searching for. James and Katrina spend a weekend exploring the limits of passion and desire and pain. And in the end, James vanishes into the night. And they never see each other again.

Well, not exactly. Let’s skip ahead a few years. Continue reading

22

Title: Make Me Yours Evermore
Author: Cari Silverwood
Publisher: Cari Silverwood
ISBN: 9781311900234

At one point, Chris, a character in Make Me Yours Evermore, mentions brain bleach. By the end of the book, I was surreptitiously checking supermarket shelves for a bottle of the stuff.

Redemption? Remorse? Morality?

Phtt.

Love?

Wash your mouth out.

This book is about lust, desire, control and corruption. But, above all else, it’s about power. Held absolutely and resolutely over another human being. Consensual? No. But compelling and intoxicating, nonetheless.

Brain Bleach

I can’t recall a single time I’ve ‘enjoyed’ (not to be confused with ‘been impressed by’) a book featuring a core protagonist I was unable to like, empathise with, or warm to. But in this particular case, I did. Continue reading

04

Pain Positive

“Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”

– International Association for the Study of Pain

 

As a sensation in general, pain (understandably) gets a bad wrap. If we accept the above definition, it’s the body’s way of letting us know that we’re doing something to it that it would rather we didn’t.

But, for some, feeling and/or inflicting pain isn’t always a negative experience. What about those of us who have a positive, healthy relationship with it? Who consider it to be an intrinsic part of our sexual selves and a consensual, loving relationship?

I have been trying to write this post for a while but it has proven to be rather difficult. Mainly because I’m not confident that I can fully articulate the nuances of erotic pain, it subtleties – its beauty – in any sort of way that will do it justice. Not to mention that I am fighting against the ridiculously outdated perceptions of sexual/erotic pain put forward in the late 1800s and early Twentieth Century by two well-known psychiatrists. (Yep, we’re still defining sadism and masochism according to theories that are now over 100 years old. How’s that for progress?)

So I’ve called in help – big time – in the form of four very awesome people, all of whom, like me, have a close relationship with sexual pain and view it rather differently to Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Sigmund Freud

 

THE RECEIVING END

Molly

That first touch of his hand or the flogger or the paddle is always a shock that makes me gasp for breath and often, for a split second, a little glimmer of hate for this moment will niggle at my brain. ‘Ow that hurts’ my knee jerk reaction but only for a moment. The smallest of moments, because then it is replaced with a heat, a strong powerful surge of chemicals that flood my nervous system but all too soon they begin to wane, disappearing alone my nerve endings and fluttering away to almost nothing until the next strike and then the next and onwards. My body greedily lapping up the sensation, riding on an ever building wave of heat and pressure making my muscles twitch and my skin throb. Nothing else exists in this moment, the pain (for want of a better word) is a consuming focusing point that dances through my body, emptying my mind of everything and making me feel. Everything is more when there is pain and yet everything is me. I am the centre of myself or should I say my body is. Alight with heat, hot electric pulsing heat that fills me up and consumes me, washing everything else away. I am raw, exposed, vulnerable and yet invincible. In that moment I feel so truly alive. Continue reading

02

Bind and Keep Me - Cari SilverwoodTitle: Bind and Keep Me (Pierced Hearts, Book 2)
Author: Cari Silverwood
Publisher: Cari Silverwood (29 August 2013)
ISBN: 9781301773190
Reviewer(s): Michael & Jane

Two words: still recovering. Bind and Keep Me is non-con BDSM erotica at its absolute best. If you like your tales dark, you’re not going to want to miss this one.

*You can click on any of the stick figure drawings below to make them bigger. Which many of you will likely need to do if your eyesight is as bad as mine and you can’t read the writing!

 

JANE’S TAKE

This book should come with a health warning:

Caution! Jaw may drop to floor and disconnect from face. The author assumes no responsibility for readers who spontaneously combust with arousal and/or spend days wondering whether their moral compass needs resetting as a result of reading (and enjoying) this book.

 

Jane's Jaw

Leave your sanity at the door because there is absolutely no way that Bind and Keep Me can be put into either the Safe, Sane and Consensual (SSC) or Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK) buckets. There is unsafe play in spades. There is insane play by the truckload. There is non-consent to the power of a hundred overlaid with the veneer of incredibly dubious consent. There is risk with a capital ‘R’. And there is kink. Oh, man is there kink. Continue reading

11

Thai Nipple Sticks (floral)

If you’ve been rummaging around in the Chintz Toy Box, you may remember that last year, Thomas and Lizzie reviewed a set of Squeezer Teaser nipple clamps.  Low and behold, that post has gone on to become one the most popular and visited on Behind the Chintz Curtain and, even weeks and months after its publication, it continues to draw readers on a regular basis. It seems there’s a definite appetite to know more about the practice of nipple clamping – the various clamp styles, how they’re used, the pros and cons of the different designs out there, and the sensations they create.

How intense are they? Are they easy to get on? What happens, exactly, when you take them off?

To that end, I’ve asked the pair of them to put together a quick ‘n’ dirty overview of their clamping experiences, discussing their perceptions of the sensations clamps generate, and a breakdown of the benefits and hindrances of the various styles on offer.

IMPORTANT: This isn’t a ‘how to’ guide. If you think clamping is something you’d like to try, please make sure you do your homework and are aware of the risks involved/understand how to apply clamps safely. Please also take the time to read the Behind the Chintz Curtain disclaimer.

 

Sensation

Lizzie
First off, let me say this: clamping won’t be for everyone. To use the old flavouring analogy (although I’ll avoid the term ‘vanilla’) it’s all a matter of taste. For me, personally? I find that having my nipples clamped incredibly erotic and the sensation of compression a huge turn on. Bluntly, I get aroused by the pain they generate – the hit when they go on, the ache they generate once applied, and the devilish throb that kicks in when they come off. Some of the more intense styles also leave me feeling incredibly sensitive after removal and there is nothing nicer, I think, than experiencing the brush of clothing, or lips, or fingers a day or two later and being reminded of what Thomas and I did together to make them that way. Continue reading

09

Remember the write up that Michael and I did for Cari Silverwood’s Take Me, Break Me back in March? Of course you do! Who could forget deliciously sadistic Klaus and Jodie of the capture fantasy? Well, Cari, God bless her, stopped by Chintz to read our review after we’d posted it and was sweet enough to pay us both some lovely compliments on our respective ramblings. She even said nice things about my questionable ‘art’ skills. (I can’t help but have serious love for anyone who gets my stick figures.)

Anyway the other day, Michael and I received a fantastic surprise: Take Me, Break Me will soon be released in paperback and guess whose words will be appearing on the cover? Yup. Mr M’s. Continue reading

04

This Is Who I Am - Cherise SinclairTitle: This Is Who I Am (Shadowlands Book 7)
Author: Cherise Sinclair
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (27 May 2013)
ISBN: 978-1-62300-148-3
Reviewer(s): Michael & Jane

 

This joint review was a no-brainer for us. Michael and I are both big fans of Cherise Sinclair and it’s fair to say that we were both gagging to read this latest instalment in her Shadowlands series. When I suggested to him that This Is Who I Am should be our next project?

 

@Jane: I have been looking forward to that book for over a year:

‘”I won’t scar you. I won’t go past when you can take. If you can trust me that far, this will be much easier for you.” He met her eyes straight on, letting her read his body, hear the truth, and see it in his face. “But, Linda, I’m going to hurt you. You’ll hate me when I make you take it, and you’ll hate even more that you need it. That it fills that hole inside you and cleans away the clutter.”‘

(To Command and Collar (Shadowlands Book 6))

 

@Michael: CANNOT WAIT for Sam. And DeVries from Dark Haven. They both scare and tempt at the same time … *sigh*

 

Yep, we were pushing the download button on release day.

Did it live up to our expectations? Continue reading

20

Take Me, Break MeTitle: Take Me, Break Me
Author: Cari Silverwood
Publisher: Wolf Charm Press (04 March 2013)
ISBN: 9781301060573
Reviewer(s): Michael and Jane

Yep. As requested, Michael and I are back once again as a book-reviewing double act. Are we less ranty than last time? I think so. But I still ended up drawing stick figures. Couldn’t seem to stop myself. He, meanwhile, took the high road and included intelligent and insightful quotes. (I think its clear which of us is Batman and which of us is Robin in this instance …)

 

JANE’S TAKE …

Before I say anything else, I just want to make it clear that I liked this book. The story was interesting, the characters likeable, and the sex hot. (Very, very hot in fact.) But it disturbed me. And I felt bad for enjoying it at times. Continue reading

25

Concise Oxford Dictionary definition of 'spank'

 

Spank Ÿ v. slap with one’s open hand or a flat object, especially on the buttocks as a punishment. Ÿ n. a slap or series of slaps of this type.

 

How can something that’s painful be enjoyable? Create sexual satisfaction?

Erotic pain is a very hard thing to describe and quantify. In the words of Jay Wiseman:

 

‘One of the great fallacies is that people vary in their pain threshold. Medical research has proven that all persons begin to feel pain at almost exactly the same degree of stimulation. What is true is that people vary a great deal in how they react to painful stimuli …’

 

Whenever I read about spanking in the mainstream (outside of an erotic book or BDSM instructional text, basically) it’s invariably portrayed as something that’s met out as a unenjoyable punishment. Indeed, the idea that someone would willing submit to a spanking for the purposes of pleasure alone is confusing to a lot of people. Equally, the notion that there are those who like to inflict pain (responsibly) can be a difficult concept for some to get their heads around. Continue reading

23

What we used: Rattan cane
From: Bondara
Price: £16.99
Material(s): Rattan (cane), leather (handle)

*Important: Canes can hurt in bad ways as well as good ways! If you haven’t already, please do take the time to read the Behind the Chintz Curtain Disclaimer before delving further into this post.

 

First thoughts …

Lizzie
Excitement and dread.

It’s fair to say that Thomas and I have been on a bit of a journey these past few years with impact instruments; first hands, then paddles, then floggers, then straps, then crops, and now, finally, a cane. We’d been discussing the idea of trying one for a while but had been gradually building up as we knew from all the research we’d done on them (and from playing with our other impact toys) that the pain level would likely be quite a jump. Additionally, because of their greater length, there was the worry that a cane would be trickier to control.

In the end, it was Thomas who took the bull by the horns and ordered  it – I was too chicken! Continue reading