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

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

Well, from what I've read - and my own experiences - she's got a lot of unresolved and unthought bigotry going on there. Plus ... really, her sexuality is very ... whitebread in a strange way.

But I'll start with the basics (keeping in mind that I stopped reading after Obsidian Butterfly, with a quick, repulsed, glance through NiC).

She has, as far as I'm concerned (and, just like everything else BDSM is not a monolithic culture), much of the simple basics wrong. The relationship that Anita and Merry have with their men is, at the heart, abusive to the men (and certainly portray the women as selfish, nasty people). There is some very questionable consent going on and I don't just mean the lack of safe-word type stuff - not everyone uses safe words. But between the various magical ardeur type stuff and the 'you'll get killed/have no sex ever/be punished by your boss/ if you don't fuck Anita or Merry - you've removed choice from the relationship. And instead of playing with that power dynamic game, she pretends it isn't there by saying that everyone 'loves' A or M and wouldn't mind being nothign but a fucktoy - no matter that the characters were presented as powerful, ambitious people. If the genders were reversed in these books, I think that everyone would see how ugly the situation actually is more easily but our culture doesn't have such an easy time recognizing sexual abuse when it's woman on top.

Her concept of BDSM, as a positive thing, seems to be nothing more than getting slapped or pinched, bitten or fucked hard. She doesn't seem interested in the exploration of sensation - which, to me, is often key to BDSM, because there are a lot of different sensations the characters are ignoring - ass play, spanking, toys - even if you didn't want to go to whips etc there's still a lot of stuff she doesn't explore. If you're going to say that oh, Merry likes to be bitten then she'd probably like to have her nipples clamped, or her lips (both places) or so on - but no one even suggests/tries that. If Anita likes multiple men in public, well there are places that you can go and be put in a sling and be fucked by a line of men. If she likes big cocks, she'd probably like vaginal fisting/extreme penetration. There are, IMO, impulses that are there in the characters but the author is not acknowledging. And when sideline characters show they are interested in more than what the main characters are, they are labeled perverts.

She's awfully judgmental of anything sexual that her/her characters don't enjoy which I feel pretty strongly is not a characteristic of most BDSM practitioners - if you're in the freak box yourself, it doesn't do you any good to point fingers at the other freaks. She has real problems with homosexuality/lesbianism but seems fascinated with the idea that 'the love/fuck of a good woman can turn a gay man straight'. I also think there's some unacknowledge self-hatred or self-disgust at the sexuality being written about here - LKH bends reality into a pretzel to insure that no one has to sit down and really think about what they're doing or search for a way that allows the characters to regain any self-respect. While I don't really care about LKH's private sexaul mores, her writing suggests that she both is facinated by what she's writing and is also, possibly, repulsed by it. In other words, she's got hang-ups that she's pretending aren't there.
(Cont>>>)

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

I think, actually, her kink - as it were - is somewhere between humiliation and gang bangs. I'd guess, if she were more self aware of her desires be interested in humiliating her female characters (forced sex, being 'used' by multiple men, unable to control your own orgasms/sexual desires, public sex, potential forced pregnancy (merry)). She clearly loves the idea of a woman being service multiple times, by multiple men - some of whom the woman doesn't chose. Her sexuality is not, by my standards BDSM, but swinger. Swinger lifestyles - you milage may vary - are hugely woman focused (everyone is interested in sex with other women, women are expected to be sexually interested in all men, no male homosexuality takes place, lesbian sex is there to be observed by the men etc), very straight and aside from woman swapping, multiple sex partners, very vanilla and her work strongly reminds me of that.

But what angers me most, and makes me despise not only the characters but the author who came up with this situation is the author's refusal to look at what she's doing and simply remove any responsibility for the situations the characters find themselves in by using stupid deus ex machina like the aurder or the royal pregnancy bullshit line. She's not only stripping the characters of an shreds of respect but presenting a very unhealthy sexual lifestyle where 'true love' is used to excuse really crappy situations, magical date rape drugs are okay and whoring oneself for power is okay but whoring oneself for money is not.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

And, on the other side of the coin...

...there's definitely a rape/loss of control fantasy being played out in both books. Hell, the scene in Narcissus in Chains with Micah in the shower was a pretty creepy rape scene, though LKH claimed it wasn't intended that way and re-wrote it (badly) for the paperback. The rewrite was basically "I didn't want it but even though I was saying no, I really did want it".

Which I think ties in very strongly to what you say about shame and fantasies. Giving up control means you can't be held responsible for what you do, after all, which translates into "I fucked six guys in one night and three were strangers, but the ardeur made me do it, so it wasn't slutty". Nonconsensual sex is a popular fantasy for a reason, especially for people who are, for whatever reason, repressed, which seems to describe LKH.

Also, as an aside...I always figured that LKH's refusal to "fix" things was simply a borderline psychotic refusal to acknowledge that she had done something wrong in the first place. I've known too many people in my life who simply can't acknowledge they've screwed up...it's always someone else's fault, or the people doing the criticizing don't know what they're talking about (sound familiar?). Persecution complex.

And of course, anyone is free to disagree with me on any of this, I'm just speaking from my own experience and mind. But kudos on a very well thought out and interesting post.

[the-ellcrys.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who never even noticed the rape overtones in Narcissus in Chains, because I didn't pick up on it until I read an argument about it on her fanboard. I think I was alread so used to Anita's somewhat abusive relationships by then that I was numb to it. After Jean Claude blackmailing her into a relationship in The Killing Dance, and the rape scene in Blue Moon, Narcissus in Chains didn't even ping my "wow, that's distrubing" radar.

[the-ellcrys.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

disturbing even...

[hellfire82.livejournal.com]

you! you're here!

now i can say this and not feel ashamed:

"If Anita likes multiple men in public, well there are places that you can go and be put in a sling and be fucked by a line of men"

i have a new holy grail. (poor fiance.)

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was definitely buried beneath a cloud of mystic magic crap, but basically boiled down to, "it's okay if I hold you against a wall in a shower and sex you even after you keep saying 'don't', because we're soulmates and it's destined to be. Even though you only met me six hours ago. Oh yeah, and you're going to have an amazing orgasm anyway".

I think it was the subtlety of it that I found most disturbing. Very nouveaux domestic abuse.

[leggomylegolas.livejournal.com]

I have yet to find a sex scene in the entire series where Anita didn't have some "reason" that she had to do it - aside from wanting to.

It's that, not the amount of sex or how poorly it's written, that really bothers me. I think Laurel might need therapy and it really bugs me that impressionable young women are probably reading this crap. It's a horrible message to send.

[thesaneminority.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice it either, but I think that's because I tend to skim over sex scenes - IMO, unless the author is incredibly talented at smut, most sex scenes are interchangeable with other scenes with the same gender-pairings and kinks.

[nightangel486.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with this, it seems like deep down, LKH does like these things but despite her REPEATED claims of being comfortable with the darkity dark darkness in her head, she still has some hangups abotu the things she's into when it comes to sex (perhaps said repeated claims are a case of the lady protesting too much?). That whole "ooh, I want this, but it's bad, so I shouldn't want it" hence the plot devices to force the women to have sex. That way she can write all the sex she wants, the characters can have all the sex they want, and neither she nor the characters have to face the fact that they enjoy these things because omgz it's not HER, it the ARDUEREUR

[catskin.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's the other way around - She wants to have these interests, kinks and sexual proclivities because it suits her darkitydark image of herself, but she actually doesn't. That's why her writing on the subject is so shallow, tame, and misinformed - because she can't immerse herself in that culture.

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Of course it's obvious to all of us but herself. All this talk of homosexuality, of kinky sex and deep down she's a conservative housewife who decided to write her deepest and most shameful fantasies. Too bad she doesn't actually seem to know much about BDSM and gay sex. And she's too stubborn to research so she just writes it as she thinks it is. But fantasy is not normally the same as reality... :)

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

If I were a writer, and I had deep down proclivities I was afraid and ashamed of, I don't know that I would choose to work through these issues in front of a "viewing" public of several million internationally, complete with my close-up glamour shots, real name, and a daily blog. (Although exhibitionism might very well be part of the fantasy.)

(I'm starting to feel guilty analyzing this woman I don't know. ^___^ And yet I can't stop...)

I have a couple of semi-serious problems with Jacqueline Carey's writing, but the morality of it is never one of those problems. It's POV, or character, or that kind of writerly stuff which is only my opinion and can easily be argued for or against. But her stuff is never exploitative or disturbing to me, even though she gets into some pretty "dark" sexual territory.

Plus she doesn't spend nearly so much time stoking the cult of her own personality with blogs and black dresses and online histrionics (that I know of), which is probably a major part of it.

And I'm totally rambling now when I should be working...*relurks*

[slayra.livejournal.com]

I agree. There are way too many scenes since book 6 that have creepy 'rape-overtones' (?). I've noticed that. I guess many people don't notice because usually (now, since NiC) it is the men who sometimes are almost forced to have sex. Many women (and men) simply don't realize it that easily when the situation is reversed and it's men instead of women.

Nonconsensual sex is a recurrent fantasy, but I disagree on the repressed. I think many people (mostly women) have such fantasies and not all of them are repressed. Also I wouldn't say 'nonconsensual', I'd call it 'dubious consent'; because in the AB books the sex always begins with somewhat unwilling partners but 20 pages later they're all happily having sex (because of the big plot line that can generate the excuses for that much sex... the ardUer). *blinks* Does that make any sense? ^___^;;

Oh yeah, I totally agree. LKH will never admit she didn't write perfect books and that she made a horrible mistake when introducing the ardUer. I know she said it might have been better without the ardUer but I think she doesn't really believe it. She thinks she's done well. But I say she didn't. There is a reason why most foreign publishers stopped translating and publishing at Obsidian Butterfly. It's not the sex, it's the fact that the new storyline sucks.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

There is a reason why most foreign publishers stopped translating and publishing at Obsidian Butterfly.

Did they really? Do you mean, she has actually lost sales over this?

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Nonconsensual sex is a recurrent fantasy, but I disagree on the repressed. I think many people (mostly women) have such fantasies and not all of them are repressed.

Well, true, can't really make a blanket statement that every woman who has noncon fantasies is repressed, it just seems to me that it's a fantasy that appeals somewhat more to those who have control issues to start with. Then again, I could just be speaking for myself. :P

And yes, the "dubious consent" does make sense...and totally fits the whole fantasy theme. The reluctant bride kind of thing, which actually seems to thread through a lot of the old romance novels my mom used to read. You know, big, strong, handsome and slightly brutish male hero, soft, fragile, virginal female heroine, she's reluctant, he "knows what's good for her", it starts out with "no, don't" and ends with flowers and fireworks.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

I would say dubious consent is a perfectly valid fantasy, but when it comes to stories based around it, most readers aren't looking for a simple description, which is what LKH writes. What separates the good ones from the bad ones is the focus on the dynamic between the characters. LKH gives us none of that, jumping straight to "Look! Sex!" Boring.

[myrrhmade.livejournal.com]

But remember, she just can't help it if we're too challenged by her pushing our narrow/vanilla limits, right? The sky is maybe projection purple in her world? o_D

[relmneiko.livejournal.com]

And when sideline characters show they are interested in more than what the main characters are, they are labeled perverts.

Most definitely. One of the scenes that really struck me - I think it was in NiC - was one in a BDSM club where Nathaniel and a bunch of - wereswans? Or something? - are being essentially tortured. Anita has to actually pull knives out of Nathaniel's chest, and while you might pull that off with werecreatures and a sufficient leadup, the only ones enjoying the scene are the dominants, and the entire purpose of BDSM is totally lost because submissives are portrayed as victims rather than participants.

Meanwhile this is all taking place in a BDSM club. Liek wut?

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

I think in that part of NiC, they said afterwards that they wouldn't do that to anyone they weren't planning to kill.

(Anyone have the book handy?)

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

But between the various magical ardeur type stuff and the 'you'll get killed/have no sex ever/be punished by your boss/ if you don't fuck Anita or Merry - you've removed choice from the relationship. And instead of playing with that power dynamic game, she pretends it isn't there by saying that everyone 'loves' A or M and wouldn't mind being nothign but a fucktoy - no matter that the characters were presented as powerful, ambitious people.

I agree with everything you've said, but this especially. The rape aspects are really disturbing, especially because Anita/Merry is so wonderful and powerful and beautiful, it's not rape because everyone wants to fuck her anyway. The ego is just staggering.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Well, my point is that the characters don't seem to consider it rape because it's such a privilege to fuck Merita, resulting in orgasms that register on the Richter scale, so why should we? (sarcasm alert)

The whole thing basically comes across to me as, "You were raped by George Clooney. But OMG, it was GEORGE CLOONEY, why are you complaining?"

Apologies to Mr. Clooney, but his name was just the first that came to mind.

I do agree, though, it is really f'ed up. If it's not straight out rape, it's coercion and a whole bunch of 'not quite rape but still really creepy and wrong'.

Then again, society in general has such a horrible double standard when it comes to sexual abuse/violence against men, so it really doesn't surprise me to see it here.

[fairady.livejournal.com]

If the genders were reversed in these books, I think that everyone would see how ugly the situation actually is more easily but our culture doesn't have such an easy time recognizing sexual abuse when it's woman on top.

Very late for the topic, but this just struck me as being very true. I once read a fanfic in another fandom where the writer switched all of the character's genders, but kept everything else essentially the same. It was interesting to read it and see how my own perception of some events from the plot changed when the only thing different about it was the gender of each character. I'm now very curious about how people would view the AB series if the gender roles were reversed in it.