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

[morteamore.livejournal.com]

i agree with the judgmental comment. her whole approach to BDSM has a quality of someone looking in no the scene and mimicking what they see, but trying to rationalize or thinking they're above it at the same time. i've felt she just sticks it in her books to appear more dark and edgy. no big surprise there. i find it offensive

[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.

[kali1967.livejournal.com]

One thing that always bugged me was Nathanial. I mean, maybe it's something about his standing in the pard, but it always seemed as if he literally had no will of his own, he'd just do whatever anyone said, no matter what it was. He was just this mindless little pet that liked to get fucked a lot. Speaking as a submissive, yeah, okay, sometimes it can be like that, but it's virtually impossible to keep that mindset 24/7. Like I said, maybe it has something to do with his shapeshifter status, but it always annoyed me whenever LKH would mention how submissive Nathanial is.

[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]

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.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I'll freely admit that my interest in the scene thus far is purely literary -- but I think the main thing that's been irking me is the whole dominant/submissive portrayal. Anita's constantly fluffing herself up and saying she's the dominant one, and everyone has to submit to her, and as far as I can tell, she's one of the suckiest tops ever. The biggest thing that strikes me about this is how she goes out of her way to soothe away all the woobies with her menz with her brand of soothation (ie, lying on her back and flailing with orgasms) rather than finding out what they like and inflicting it on them. Specially with Nathaniel -- I mean, he's quite happy to be submissive to her, but then she fusses over him and says, "omg, please don't do the cooking and cleaning so much!" and tries to make him more "independent" when really, this is what makes him happy. It makes him happy to serve his master/mistress and to see them happy by what he does (which is probably why I do like the Nathaniel/Asher ship, because dammit, at least Asher knows what the hell he's doing and will let Nate do his thing. Plus, will deliver spankings and nipple-clamps when desired.)

Also, she never really services any of his needs unless she's kinda cornered into the situation -- she was reluctant to "mark" him in NiC and bite him all over, she didn't really know what to do when he was trussed up for the flogging in the club in ID. Considering that she's essentially his mistress, I woulda thought that she'd at least find out what he's into and try to cater to that. I would say she could retrain him to her style of things, but thus far that's failed so horribly because...well, she's so damned vanilla about it all.

She's happy to walk into a room and huff out that she's the greatest and that all others should acknowledge her as such, but she's got nothing to back it up.

So this kinda makes me believe she's more into masochism. LKH has confessed to being a control freak, this is the perfect outlet for that sort of thing. Just hand over control to someone else and not be responsible for things for a little while. Anita/Merry like the pain and the humiliation, and it's all somehow not her "fault", because she totally has to do the sex!

In which case, you'd think Merry/Anita'd be attracted to more dominant men and/or women just for the sexual outlet and have this person be their main squeeze/Master (*cough* Richard/Doyle much? IF ONLY).

. . . wow, I just came back to writing this comment after getting a snack and totally forgot what else I was going to say. Um. Um. WAFFLES!

[booster-blue.livejournal.com]

I you used LKH's books to understand how the BDSM community worked, you'd assume that all we did was sit in bedrooms and have bad sex at all hours of the day. She completely ignores the fact that there are relationships to be had. Tops don't just simply walk up to any submissive and drag them off to screw them mindless. You have to actually get to know the person you're going to get involved with. Not everyone is into the same thing, and a responsible dominant will make sure that he/she and their submissive are compatible. And the submissive will do their part in being honest with what their turns ons and limits are so as to not be overwhelmed.

Trust is a big thing in the community, and Anita/Merry don't show that in the least. They operate under the thinking that everything will work itself out, so there's no need to try and address any problems that might arise among their harems. LKH writes that sex is some sort of magical cure-all to any problems in the world. No long lasting romantic relationship can survive on just sex alone; but Merry/Anita can't be bothered with things like thinking about how their men feel (unless it get in the way of them getting their jollies).

Their selfish mistresses that see no merit in caring for their subs. And that's never a good thing with BDSM.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I liked Nathanial in the beginning. I liked the thought of someone actually protecting him and encouraging him to respect himself and take time to figure out who he was without catering to what status he had wherever (pard/were community)

And then came NiC and...

As for all the rest? It's hit me just reading this why some of my characters respond the way they do. I have Fibro. I deal with pain on a daily basis. It makes sense I'd have at least a couple of alters who have strange relationships with pain and control of pain. It's been thought out in my unconscious and when I wrote it out to try and see what I was thinking it made sense for me. I'm just glad it made sense for them when I was first hit with it.

But that all involves a level of self examination I don't think happens with LKH.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Like how she selfishly likes them with long hair, but selfishly doesn't consider that it's a hazard in a fight and life with her will always involve fighting so maybe there should be some sort of compromise?

Yeah.

*glowers quietly now*

[kali1967.livejournal.com]

I think that if someone had actually taken Nathanial and turned him into a proper person capable of voicing an opinion and saying no, it would've been a great plotline and made a fantastic character. One of the most important things about a book is character development and Nathanial just goes nowhere, he's the same as when he was first introduced.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming the fact that it magically LOOKS short in a ponytail does not count as a compromise so much?

[kali1967.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's another thing that bugged me with LKH's view on BDSM-all sex, all the time. Reminds me of a fanfic where a guy had his submissive always naked when in the house, always wearing a collar that couldn't be removed, and always wearing a butt plug/dildo/vibrator/whatever shoved up his ass.

I've never actually seen anyone portray BDSM in a realistic way in a novel. I wonder if such a thing exists?

[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...

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered how come hair does that for men, in her books, yet women wear normal sassy pony-tails, or low pony-tails, or chignons or librarian buns and yet never look like 'Their Hair Is Pastede On - Yay!'

[dan-lian.livejournal.com]

Here's my issues with it:

I'm generally an all-around switch. I've been to BDSM conventions where I've had my ass smacked by porn stars and told it's fine--and where I've had guys ask if they can use a taser on me. I've help set up a dungeon, which had everything from a padded area for "puppy play" to cages, slings, crosses, wheels, and spanking benches. I watched girls get fisted in a huge public room and guys get massaged and hot wax poured on them. LKH just limits her BDSM scope to multiple partners, biting, and hard sex. Umm... no. That's just hard sex, mmkaythnx?

Where, as someone else said, is the okay-ness with leashes? With the hot wax, the nipple clamps, the mental bondage? I've found that mental bondage -- "Kneel like that until I tell you to move"--can be incredible. Where's the blindfolds and the velvet, or the fur or the leather or the silk?

I have floggers I take great pride and joy in, and I've yet to see something so... elementary? cliche? even take a sentence in one of LKH's books. BDSM - Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism. I'm not really seeing ANY of that...

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

Agreed, she is a horrible, inexperienced dominant because she simply cannot understand why anyone would *want* to be submissive. I think LKH's misunderstanding of the term really shines through, because she really views "submissive" to be "weak" when in fact it is anything but. Her forcing Nathaniel to be more independent is a perfect example of her not quite getting what it's about.

*meltyness*Asher/Nathaniel is adorable. all cuddles and bites and such =)

[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

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

I thought the Marketplace Series by Laura Antoniou was EXCELLENT.

[nightangel486.livejournal.com]

What's interesting is that Anita/Merry claim to love all their men, but when you really examine the relationships they aren't romantic or loving at all--otherwise, as others have said, Anita would be more aware of their needs instead of so focused on herself all the time. It seems like more than anything Anita has just deluded herself and convinced herself that if she's having sex with these men, then it must be troo luv, because she doesn't want to face the fact that she's just a slut. By telling herself "oh, it;s okay, I love them!" she escapes guilt.

[stickfigurepeep.livejournal.com]

That's not true. He's gotten whineier. Anita calls it being "more independent," but mostly he just started sounding like all the other high-maintenance males in the books.

[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.)

[randomsome1.livejournal.com]

I remember the blog of hers from a few months(?) back where she said that a top was the dominant one in a relationship all the time, and that the bottom was always submissive, and that's how things were all the time unless the bottom was one of those nasty ones that basically tried to have an opinion of their own.

The bit where Merita claws the hell out of herself and whoever else is around her, no matter if they've said they don't want clawed or whatnot, seems off to me. I think it's mostly that she doesn't focus on, attempt to enjoy, or even really register the pain she's inflicting on herself or others.

[hellfire82.livejournal.com]

I think all of the men have mullets.