From the Other Side
from: Pursed LipsAdded: 2009-03-13 12:50:00.0 | comments: 0
While I buried myself in finishing Desire's Pursuit - now renamed Training Desire (w00t!) for Ravenous Romance, one of my self-imposed reading assignments was delving into Daniel Bergner's The Other Side of Desire. The book's garnered a lot of media attention, from the NY Times to Salon and NPR. Bergner even blogged over at Powells Books. Always game for an examination of sexual desire, I jumped on the book.
From the Times description of Bergner, I half expected the book to be something of an Average Joe's look at sex, but what I got was sound reportage instead. Bergner profiled four different paraphilias -- foot fetishism, female sadism, pedophilia, and amputee attraction, delving into each and their psychology with a fair amount of courage and curiosity.
Yet I came away with mixed feelings and a good deal of respect for what Bergner accomplished in Other Side. I found myself torn over the foot fetishist's dilemma in his book. Here, a man was chose chemical castration to end his tormented arousal for feet, a fetish so strong that the mere mention of the word foot made the fellow hard. Regardless of context. My sex-positive side ached to see the guy cognitively talk himself into self-acceptance, but his shame was so strong and his arousal so inconvenient that he chose otherwise.
When Bergner moved on to female sadism, my first reaction was "The Baroness? Not again!" She's a personage that pops up time and again in books when the author wants to explore sadism. Plus, she reminds me of actress Molly Shannon. A lot.
But I quickly saw what Bergner was doing: He was focusing on the rarest of creatures in the BDSM realm of things, the female sadist. And The Baroness is apologetically that.
To my surprise, Begner's exploration at The Baroness' side gave me a few unexpected finds. First, and perhaps most thought-provoking, when he quoted psychological schools of thought, he fell back on 19th-century KrafFt-Ebing and Hirschfeld, which stopped me in my tracks. You mean there isn't anything more current? Really.
But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It might mean that the sexual expression of recreational BDSM is so acceptable to the psychiatric profession that it isn't worth exploring. That maybe it no longer rises to the level of paraphilia. If so, I find that refreshing.
Nonetheless, I suspect The Baroness will come across to the uninitiated as unduly extreme and S/M as the frightening whips-and-chains of old. Her tales of extreme play -- especially the roasting of a human pig-on-a-spit -- will cloud the minds of the uninitiated. They won't see her sober compassion for the street outsiders of her neighborhood, her capacity for soulful lust and love.
Be forewarned: The Baroness is not for beginners.
Bergner really challenges his readers when he explores the nature of pedophilia. When we hear the word, we don't think fetish, we think crime. Bergner himself struggles with the subject, walking a tightrope between objective reporting and the knee jerk of his own parental protectiveness. However, he uncovers some fascinating findings in the process. Unlike the BDSM section where the psychiatric literature is old and dated, much of the literature about pedophilia is current and ground-breaking, suggesting that the mystery of pedophilia could be unraveled by continued hard work. Some findings suggest the disturbing possibility that pedophilia, for repeat offenders, might be an inborn trait, but it's clear that sex crimes aren't a one-size-fits-all. For every hardcore, inborn pedophilia, God only knows how many are one-timers acting on impulse after having lost all sense of boundaries. All deserve prosecution. But we must at least consider that what leads a person down this path is a varied as any
other
sexual motivation.
Is pedophilia an uncomfortable topic to explore? Without a doubt. Is it so distasteful that it compels us to remain ignorant? I think not. Let's be more courageous than that.
Bergner waxes most compelling when he examines amputeeism. At face value, an amputee attraction appears extreme, like a fetish twisted into the strangest of perversions. For the reader, it's like a car-wreck -- you can't help but watch. However, Bergner pushes beyond the rubber-necking to show us that the oddest of fetishes isn't necessarily superficial. Out of tragedy, a woman amputee finds identity and acceptance when she poses for fetishists. And when she meets a photographer who has longed loved amputees, couplehood forms. Out of the depth of human existence, mutual fulfillment arose and a happy ending was had.
Which left me to ask myself, "Who am I to judge?"
Perhaps that's the best message of Bergner's book. Sexual attraction is a complex and varied beast, and perhaps we should be less quick to slap an quick-and-easy label on every little variation. Yes, let's keep a strong sense of criminal victimization for such acts as pedophilia. But let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. Let's be a touch more discerning and knowledgeable.
The Other Side of Desire is a good place to start.
Blind Seduction is Ravenous Romance's Book of the Day!
from: Pursed LipsAdded: 2009-03-06 11:20:00.0 | comments: 0
I'm working on a long assessment of Daniel Bergner's The Other Side of Desire for Pursed Lips, but int the meantime:
I'm thrilled to announce that Ravenous Romance chose to feature my novel, Blind Seduction, as its Book of the Day. It's splashed across the website's front page and I hope you'll check it out!
About Blind Seduction:
Leslie, a happily married suburban wife, is expecting a quiet weekend in Maine when her husband Phillip whisks her away for their 10th anniversary getaway. 
But the moment he slips a blindfold over her eyes and undoes her blouse—as soon as she gets in the car—she realizes that a quaint B&B and a stroll on the boardwalk weren't quite what he had in mind.
It turns out her trusted husband is more interested in B&D—bondage and discipline—and Leslie is shocked when he escorts her to an erotic retreat where no fetish is off-limits. At first, she willingly plays the part of his sex slave—handcuffs and a chastity belt certainly spice things up, after all. But as Phillip becomes more and more aggressive in his demands, could he push Leslie too far, too fast?
As the fun and games at the hotel start to turn scary, find out what happens when an ordinary couple tests the boundaries of their fantasies—and their devotion—on a weekend they'll never forget.
Hope that whets your appetite for a good read! And I'll return with that review before the weekend's out. Promise.
Blind Seduction is Ravenous Romance's Book of the Day!
from: Debra Hyde: Weaving Erotic WondersAdded: 2009-03-06 11:14:00.0 | comments: 0
I'm thrilled to announce that Ravenous Romance chose to feature my novel, Blind Seduction, as its Book of the Day. It's splashed across the website's front page and I hope you'll check it out!
About Blind Seduction:
Leslie, a happily married suburban wife, is expecting a quiet weekend in Maine when her husband Phillip whisks her away for their 10th anniversary getaway. But the moment he slips a blindfold over her eyes and undoes her blouse—as soon as she gets in the car—she realizes that a quaint B&B and a stroll on the boardwalk weren't quite what he had in mind.
It turns out her trusted husband is more interested in B&D—bondage and discipline—and Leslie is shocked when he escorts her to an erotic retreat where no fetish is off-limits. At first, she willingly plays the part of his sex slave—handcuffs and a chastity belt certainly spice things up, after all. But as Phillip becomes more and more aggressive in his demands, could he push Leslie too far, too fast?
As the fun and games at the hotel start to turn scary, find out what happens when an ordinary couple tests the boundaries of their fantasies—and their devotion—on a weekend they'll never forget.
Hope that whets your appetite for a good read!
I wish I could claim...
from: Debra Hyde: Weaving Erotic WondersAdded: 2009-03-04 19:48:22.0 | comments: 0
I've been away in France buying books, but life's been a touch more mundane than that. On the accomplishment side of things, I turned in my second novel to Ravenous Romance, a fantasy entitled Desire's Pursuit that the start of a four-part series. It was hard work, but wonderfully rewarding. I'm about to start the second volume, which will return me to the craziness of immersing myself in a fantasy world for a some hours most every day of the week.
Somehow, I have to figure out how to blog both here and at Pursed Lips at least a couple of times a week. No more once every few weeks, damn it!
That said, what did I mean about France and book-buying? Well, a recent episode of CBS Sunday Morning included a story about book shopping in Paris, covering everything from your obsessive bibliophile to the odd-job, eccentric raconteur known as a book scout but ultimately portrayed Paris as center of the book-selling universe.
Honestly, this kind of story waxes completely romantic for me. It beckons me. Bibliophile that I am, I've added Paris to the Book Trips I Want to Make over the next decade. Why? Because I love hunting for books. I love the pursuit, scanning piles for elusive titles. I love the rush of joy I feel when I spot a find and take it into hand.
Don't let my modern propensity for the e-book fool you. While I embrace New Tech, I still love the Old Form. So much so that I must see Paris before I die.
Quickies For You...
from: Debra Hyde: Weaving Erotic WondersAdded: 2009-02-04 16:59:16.0 | comments: 0
Finishing the work on my next Ravenous Romance novel, Desire's Pursuit, is commanding almost all of my time, but I have taken time out to post a book trailer for Blind Seduction at YouTube. And I've written a couple of entries for Ravenous Romance's author blog.
To introduce myself to Ravenous Romance readers, I blogged about how I came to write erotica and erotic romance, first with The Transition and then with Then There's the Sex. I'll write about different schools of thought in my next entry.
Soon you'll find some newly update links in my Novels section and here on the template. Keep an eye out!