Curious about this for awhile...

[saucyirishlass.livejournal.com]

It's been said in many places by different people that LKH's portrayal of the BDSM lifestyle is off. I know a bit more than just the basics - ah, the joys of reading - and can sort of inherently pick up that something isn't right with her depiction, but I can't really articulate it. I was just curious to hear from those who participate in the lifestyle, what they personally find offensive, frustrating, or just headdesk-worthy about LKH's portrayal. Perhaps they can help make it clearer to me why it feels amiss.

Comments

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

when she introduced the concept of "American sex" vs "European sex"

I must know. I really must. What the hell does this mean? Was this a feature in the books, or just her whole blog drama thing?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

No, it's in the actual books -- I think it first cropped up in Cerulean Sins, when Anita was having a heart-to-heart with JC and/or Asher about her definition of sex = intercourse, while theirs is a little bit more liberal (because they're gay French and therefore made of sex?) and what they're comfortable with doing isn't the same as what she's comfortable with doing, blah, blah, bitchcakes.

It may have been briefly in Narcissus, but I'm blotting that out of my memory.

I know it made a brief comeback in ID, much to my disappointment.

I probably wouldn't be so irksome about it if she hadn't labelled it as "American" vs "European" sex, because of the generalisation of it all. Sex is subjective, I wouldn't have minded if she'd written Anita saying "this is my definition of sex,"

[saucyirishlass.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it first made an appearance in NiC, after their little orgy where Belle Morte tried to possess Anita or something. Anita wasn't counting it as sex, and neither was Nathaniel, and Jean-Claude said that it was the American way of looking at it, that no intercourse = no sex.

[spoiled-saint.livejournal.com]

Well, admittedly, we're talking about a country where oral sex wasn't seen as actual sex by the president himself. There is something in the "American" generalization.

And how about that little episode where there was a wide movement for abstaining from sex until marriage in young adults - mostly as a way to safeguard against STD - and then the average number of cases of STD didn't move an inch... because the "young adults" didn't see oral sex and anal sex as breaking chastity.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

How COULD you go and use logic and valid examples to remind me of the foibles of my countrymen... er, persons!

[spoiled-saint.livejournal.com]

;-) lol