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

[dwg.livejournal.com]

You...probably chose a really great time to throw away the books, because it kinda gets creepier from NiC on out. Specially in ID, where Nathaniel is way more aggressive and fed up with Anita treating him with kid-gloves and has decided that he wants her as his girlfriend proper instead of just food for her ardeur.

While I can say, "yay!" for a character putting their foot down for not wanting to be munched upon so wantonly and then set aside without a second thought, I have to take away the minor happy points for the creepy, "I want Anita as my girlfriend!" thing. I never agreed with LKH's portrayal of relationships in the first place -- specially the whole, "I have a boyfriend! I'm a real girl now!" and all the wangst that went with it, I nearly hit the roof when she introduced the concept of "American sex" vs "European sex" -- to then have Nathaniel turn around and demand that Anita finally have proper intercourse with him just...grated so damned hard against everything that he'd initially set up to be.

And then to have Anita agree to it just...no freaking words

I probably would have been more interested if LKH had taken the route that you suggested, with helping Nathaniel figure himself out and grow as an actual person – it would have shown way more respect to both the character and the readers, but...well, we all know how much she respects her readership.

And never mind the rest of the pard that she has responsibility for, man. They're totally ignored, despite many of them being in the same boat as Nathaniel.

[arclights.livejournal.com]

Whatever happened to the rest of the pard, anyway? Cherry? Zane?

...I kind of liked them. =/

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I have the theory that Gabriel is totally not dead and was off earning a living somewhere and didn't know about Anita's taking over the pard until he was told about Raina being dead. So now he's back and plotting revenge on our heroine, and the rest of the pard is just, "OMFG YAYE! A REAL LEOPARD!" and have now crashed at his place and are enjoying porny games and such.

It's only a matter of time before he turns up, yoinks back Nathaniel and pwns Micah's ass, then makes them both watch as he hotly kills Anita.

[arclights.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a fantastic theory, and definitely far less mind-breaking and well-planned than the truth, whatever it is. ^_~

[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