Meet a sexier, smarter Dom than Christian Grey
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Part of the problem is a dearth of truly knowledgeable kinky fiction.
Photo courtesy of Nina Hartley, Ernest Greene on Instagram
Steve Diet Goedde
You can't turn around these days without seeing Christian Grey, kinky hero of E.L. James' worldwide best-seller Fifty Shades of Grey, or his on-screen counterpart, Jamie Dornan. But the book and film have left many BDSM practitioners nonplussed, with writer Stephen Elliott calling for a boycott after Dornan told Elle UK that after visiting a sex dungeon he "had a long shower" before touching his wife and baby, implying that kink is somehow tainted.
Part of the problem is a dearth of truly knowledgeable kinky fiction, especially from a heterosexual male perspective. Enter Ernest Greene, longtime pornography director, husband of porn star Nina Hartley and someone who's "been the dominant partner in BDSM relationships virtually exclusively for over 40 years," as he writes in his must-read novel, Master of O. The book is modeled on Pauline Réage's Story of O, but set in glitzy, modern L.A.
Why a "must-read?" Because rather than BDSM being used as an angst-ridden plot device where a troubling reason is given for a character's interest in punishment and power play, Greene's characters are unapologetically kinky. At one point, while being caned, Greene writes of O, the submissive heroine, "This was quality pain. She'd had little enough of it to know how rare it was."
The idea that erotic pain can even be measured is an audacious one in a society still sorting out what we think of kinky people. Only in 2013 did the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders downgrade BDSM from a mental disorder. Greene considers kink a sexual orientation similar to being gay.
"Kink is the core of my sexual identity," he told me, which will be a relief to readers looking for a man who understands why a woman like his O would want someone who can complement her need for total submission. She doesn't want a man who's uncertain about how to treat her. "I hope I never stop being scared of you, at least a little bit," she says to Steven Diamond, Greene's hero.
The idea of being turned on by being afraid may be confusing to some readers, but it makes perfect sense to me. I've been with lovers whom I've wanted to make me cry, whom I've wanted to "force" me to do things I wouldn't do otherwise.
This does not mean I, or O, want someone who doesn't respect us as human beings; it means that we want lovers whom we can trust with, essentially, our lives. Yes, that's extreme, but that's part of the rush. Especially for women, who live with the threat of actual sexual violence, being able to trust someone to respect us while hurting or humiliating us within the context of a consensual relationship, is a major undertaking.
What makes Master work is Greene's intimate knowledge of his subject. "The descriptions of actual BDSM activities are pretty much all taken from experience," he said. Hartley, who calls him "sir" at home, credits him with turning her on to the joys of a dominant/submissive relationship.
In Fifty Shades, one gets the sense that Christian is grooming Ana into a preordained submissive role: She is conceding to the Red Room of Pain's torments because she loves him. But in Master, Steven and O complement each other. That's not to say they always agree, or the book wouldn't be 762 pages, but they come to BDSM from a place of mutual respect. This was vital to Greene. "O is no passive recipient of Steven's demands. He finds her so attractive precisely because she's every bit as enthusiastic about their sexual adventures as he is," he said.
Steven is beguiling precisely because he's a happy sadist. He knows what he wants, yet O pushes him to extremes with her sexual kinks. Master isn't for the fainthearted, but it's all the more satisfying because of its erotic intensity, and because O bears none of Ana's sexual squeamishness. Here's to quality pain, and quality dominance, fictional and actual.
Rachel Kramer Bussel is the author of the essay collection Sex & Cupcakes and editor of over 50 erotica anthologies, most recently Hungry for More and The Big Book of Submission. She tweets @raquelita.
