I am fifty-five years old, and I’ve been active in the BDSM lifestyle since my early twenties. My Safeword series was written because, at the time, most of the BDSM hitting the ebook market was clearly written by people who’d never felt the sting of a whip. I was certain I could do better, and eventually, after six attempts, I wrote something I thought a publisher might be interested in. Fifteen years later, I write mostly paranormal romance, but a fair amount of kink and power exchange still sneaks in. Vampires and werewolves aren’t known for submitting to others, after all.
I was first introduced to The Story of O in a college psychology book, where a three-paragraph exerpt was listed, which I read and reread, over and over.
I needed the entire book, but since this was around 1987, finding one in a bookstore in Chattanooga (also known as the buckle of the bible belt) proved difficult. A friend found me a copy in Atlanta, and I devoured it.
I’d known something wasn’t normal about my sexual tastes, and this told me at least one more person on the planet felt the same as me. I wasn’t certain what to think about the fact the book was published in 1954.
I also learned about the Marquis de Sade in that psych class, but he was a bit over the top for me.
The classic French erotic bestseller that preceded Fifty Shades of Grey
A beautiful young French woman, known only as 'O', is taken by her lover Rene to a splendid mansion near Paris. Here, she is initiated into an elite secret society, where she must learn to serve the sexual fantasies of Rene and his fellow members. But she must also explore the nature of her own darkest desires - and confront just how far she is willing to go for love...
The Beauty Series is actually three books, written as one long story: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, Beauty's Release.
When I read the books, sometime around 1989, I didn’t know Anne Rice had written them. I only knew this was proof that yet another person felt the same as me about sex.
These books aren’t written as consensual sex, but they’re pure fantasy, so it worked okay for me then and still does today.
Before E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey and Sylvia Day's Bared to You, there was Anne Rice's New York Times best seller The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
In the traditional folktale of "Sleeping Beauty," the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. In the first book of the series, Anne Rice (author of Beauty's Kingdom), writing as A.N. Roquelaure, retells the Beauty story and probes the unspoken implications…
Mr. Benson is the compelling story of a young man’s quest for the perfect master. In a West Village leather bar, he finds wealthy, sophisticated, exacting Aristotle Benson, who leads him down the path of erotic enlightenment, teaching him to accept cruelty as love, anguish as affection, and ultimately, Mr. Benson as his master.
If John Preston, the masterly, handsome author of more than 30 books, was himself a gay icon, his character Mr. Benson defined the culture of gay sex for an entire generation. When Mr. Benson appeared in the pre-AIDS early 1980s, its unabashed celebration of male sexuality…
I’m actually recommending two books here: Carrie's Story and Safe Word – a duet telling the full story.
Whether these came before the internet was a “thing” is arguable, but they were certainly published before ebooks had a chance to change the publishing industry.
They are well written, and once again come clearly from someone who understands the lifestyle. These books are highly recommended, and come towards the end of my list mainly because I’m doing this (up to this point) chronologically.
Carrie's Story is regarded as one of the finest erotic novels ever written- smart, devastatingly sexy and, at times, shocking, Molly Weatherfield has penned a book that is standing the test of time alongside The Story of O and Justine in this new era of "BDSM romance," a la 50 Shades of Grey the whips and cuffs are out of the closet and "chateau porn" has given way to mommy porn. Carrie's Story remains at the head of the class, literally. Imagine The Story of O starring a Berkeley PhD candidate in comparative literature, who moonlights as a bike messenger,…
I listed the first book, but I’m actually talking about the entire thirty-seven-book Gor series, which spans the fifty-seven years from 1966 through the present day.
However, I don’t necessarily recommend this series, which is why it’s in last place, but it’s an important footnote in the history of BDSM fiction and must be mentioned.
In this fictional world, women are slaves, and there are all kinds of complicated rules about how they must act around free men. The many slave positions described in the books have made it into the modern kinky lexicon, along with other phrases and terms.
If you’re going to read one, I would suggest picking a later book at random—Norman’s craft gets a little better over time. It wasn’t terrible to start, but it’s better, later. He wrote (and is still writing) an intriguing world that obviously hooked a whole lot of readers.
There were Gor parties, with people dressed as the characters in the books, back in the mid-nineties. There may still be, but I’m old now, and no longer publicly active in the lifestyle.
The first novel in the long-running sword-and-planet series set on a Counter-Earth, where warriors rise above the chaos of bondage and brutality.
Tarl Cabot has always believed himself to be a citizen of Earth. He has no inkling that his destiny is far greater than the small planet he has inhabited for the first twenty-odd years of his life. One frosty winter night in the New England woods, he finds himself transported to the planet of Gor, also known as Counter Earth, where everything is dramatically different from anything he has ever experienced. It emerges that Tarl is to be…
What happens when an introverted artist who only likes sex when it’s a one-night stand meets a computer-geek-extraordinaire with his own sexy secrets? Objectification, romance, pain, adoration, lots of kinky toys, and oodles and oodles of wonderfully imaginative sex.
Join Cara and Travis on their journey to mesh their distinctive sexual tastes into a loving relationship with blow-your-mind kink.
I once saw a play at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Theatre. A play about Sor Juana. It was a good play, but it felt like something was missing like jalapenos left out of enchiladas. The play kept nudging me to look further to find Sor Juana, and so for the next five years, I did so. I read and read more. I listened for her voice, and that is where I heard her life come alive. This isn’t the only possibility for Sor Juana’s life; it is just the one I heard.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, this brilliant 17th century nun flew through Mexico City on the breeze of poetry and philosophy. She met with princes of the Church, and with the royalty of Spain and Mexico. Then she met a stunning, powerful woman with lavender eyes, la Vicereine Maria Louisa, and her life changed forever. As her fame grew, she dared to challenge the diabolical Archbishop once too often, and he threw her in front of the Inquisition, where she stood, alone.
Sor Juana's work is studied still today, and justifiably so. Scholars study her months on end; mystics…
This astonishingly brilliant 17th century poet and dramatist, this nun, flew through Mexico City on wings of inspiration. Having no dowry, she chose the life of a nun so that she might learn, so that she might write, so that she might meet the most fascinating people of the western world. She accomplished all of that, and more.
One day a woman with violet eyes, eyes the color of passion flowers, entered her life. It was the new Vicereine, Maria Luisa. As the two most powerful women in Mexico City, the bond between them crossed politics and wound them in…
