As my birthday approaches (tomorrow!) I’m once again struck by how totally Gemini I am: always of two minds, alternatively Pam the swooning romantic and Molly the shy p0rn0gr@ph#r.

Two genres, two ways of shaping a story.

On the romance side I see arcs of redemption, the closure and satisfaction of the HEA always immanent even in the darkest, most hopeless moments of the plot. Whereas the BDSM story — almost by definition– is an ever ascending, never completely satisfied spiral of anxious consent and escalating control, where the ending (pardon the pun) is always up for grabs.

In the wake of the 50 Shades juggernaut, of course, lots of writers have been publishing BDSM romance, and lately I’ve been experimenting with it myself. But I’m also still a sucker for the tough, smart, challenging BDSM story that keeps us guessing where it’ll end up. As a reader I’m like Molly Weatherfield‘s BDSM heroine Carrie: eager and grateful to be pushed and shoved, whacked and prodded through the dangerous thickets of narrative, by a voice and a sensibility tougher and more sure of itself than my own.

Which is why I fell so hard for Greta Christina‘s writing, first almost a decade ago when I heard the author read the story “This Week,” and again when I read the story for myself, this time in the author’s story collection, called Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More, recently published and available as an eBook (find the links below).
And yes, there really is a story about a unicorn. And a couple of others that poke their inquisitive noses into the sexy, scary places where faith and control bump up against each other (without the secular redemption implicit in the romance form). But “This Week” might still be my favorite, for its clarity of diction and purpose, the way its cadenced phrasing get me every time. “It’s the voice,” one of Anne Rice’s erotica characters muses: the careful yet leisurely arrogance of a certain species of narrative voice is all I need to feel mildly scared (in a good way) and totally that I’m in hard, capable hands.

*****

To read the rest of this review by erotica and romance writer Pam Rosenthal, a.k.a. Molly Weatherfield (“Carrie’s Story”), go to How to Read a Remarkable Work of Erotica on Pam’s blog, Passions and Provocations.

Here’s the deal: I’m doing a blog tour for my new erotic fiction collection, “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.” Today’s installment in the tour is a smart, thoughtful, very complimentary review, blended with an essay on the reading of erotic fiction, from Pam Rosenthal, a.k.a. Molly Weatherfield, author of Carrie’s Story: An Erotic S/M Novel

and Safe Word: An Erotic S/M Novel (IMO two of the best erotica novels around), who can be found on her blog, Passions and Provocations.

And remember — the book is currently available an an ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. Audiobook and paperback are coming soon!

Previous stops on this blog tour:

6/3:
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Is Erotic Shame Real Shame? (guest post by me)
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)
Ozy Frantz has taken down their blog. These posts have now been reprinted on my own blog:
Is Erotic Shame “Real” Shame? (essay)
Excerpt from Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)

6/4:
Brute Reason: Greta Christina on Writing Dirty Stories (interview with Miri)

6/5:
Lusty Lady, Rachel Kramer Bussell: Excerpt from Craig’s List (extended excerpt)

6/7:
Charlie Glickman’s Blog: “Discover just how far sexy goes” (brief review/ blurb)

6/10:
WWJTD? JT Eberhard’s blog: On Being an Atheist Writing Religious Porn, plus Excerpt from Penitence as a Perpetual Motion Machine (guest post by me, plus extended excerpt)

For audiobook readers of “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More”: Here is the resource guide. The book has a longish resource guide at the end, with books, hotlines, and online resources, offering information and ideas on how to navigate real-world SM safely. I’m obviously not going to be reading this into the audiobook — I can’t imagine that being fun for anyone — so I’m making it available here on my blog. Enjoy!

“Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More”
Resource Guide

I said this in the introduction, but I’ll say it again: This book is not a how-to guide on safe, consensual sadomasochism and kinky sex. This is a book of fantasies. While some of the stories here describe reasonably safe and healthy kinky relationships, many of them absolutely do not. The stories here are meant to entertain, to arouse, to provoke thought, to provide insight, to provide sexy images for you to get off on while you fuck or play or diddle yourself. But they are not meant to be replicated in real life. (Except in a consensual, safe, negotiated, acting- out- fantasies way.)

So what do you do if you do want information on how to practice safe, consensual sadomasochism and kinky sex?

Here are some resources to help you out. It includes books, hotlines, and online resources, with information and ideas on how to navigate real-world SM safely — both physically, and emotionally.

You may or may not want to do SM in your real life. Lots of people have kinky fantasies that they have no interest in acting out. And that’s totally fine. But lots of people have kinky fantasies that they’re very interested in acting out. And that’s totally fine, too. If you’re in that second group, and you don’t know how to get started — or if you’ve already gotten started, and you want some ideas about how to do it better or take it further — here are some resources to help you out. Have fun! Continue reading “"Bending" Resource Guide for Audible Audiobook Readers” →

This originally appeared as a guest post on Ozy Frantz’s Blog. Ozy has taken down their blog, so I am reprinting it here instead.

This is an extended excerpt from story “Christian Domestic Discipline,” one of the stories in “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More” by Greta Christina. Available as an eboook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords: audiobook and print editions coming soon.

She sometimes forgets that this was her idea.

She’s getting confused about this, and she forgets that she’s the one who talked him into it. She forgets that she’s the one who found the Website, with the handbook and the Bible quotes and the stories: all that stuff about how God wants husbands to decide and wives to obey, how it was God’s will for a husband to physically chastise his wife, how it restored the natural order of a marriage for a husband to spank his wife when she misbehaves. She forgets how intriguing she found it: like an adventure in marriage, an exciting secret with God’s blessing. She forgets how eager she was to show him the stories: the devotion of the rituals, the constant cycles of defiance and penitence, the loving attention to the physical details of implements and undergarments and bare bottoms being revealed. All by command of the inerrant word of God. Continue reading “"Christian Domestic Discipline": Extended Excerpt” →

The audiobook for “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More” is happening! It’s being done through Audible, and should be available in all the usual Audible channels, including Amazon and iTunes. I’ll let you know as soon as the audiobook is available for sale.

And yes, I’m doing the recording, in my own voice and everything. The recording happens next week. Yaaaay!

If you can’t wait that long, the book is currently available an an ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. And a paperback print edition is in the works as well!

And for all you audiobook fans: The audiobook version of “Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless” is also available at Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. And yes, I did the recording for this one as well. I am woman, hear me rant!

On her 24th birthday, she decided there were three things she wanted to do before she turned 25. Sexual things. All three involved taking stupid risks, putting her body into the hands of people she knew nothing about and had no reason to trust. All three involved Craig’s List.

*****

To read the rest of this excerpt, go to Excerpt from Craig’s List, my guest post on Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Lusty Lady blog.

Here’s the deal: I’m doing a blog tour for my new erotic fiction collection, “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.” Today’s installment in the tour is on Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Lusty Lady blog — an extended excerpt from the story “Craig’s List”. Many thanks to Ozy for taking part in this tour!

And remember — the book is currently available an an ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. Audiobook and paperback are coming soon!

Previous stops on this blog tour:

6/3:
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Is Erotic Shame Real Shame? (guest post by me)
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)
Ozy Frantz has taken down their blog. These posts have now been reprinted on my own blog:
Is Erotic Shame “Real” Shame? (essay)
Excerpt from Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)

6/4:
Brute Reason: Greta Christina on Writing Dirty Stories (interview with Miri)

1. What’s your favorite thing about writing dirty stories? What’s the most challenging thing about it?

I have two favorite things. The first is the challenge as a writer. Can I shape my sexual fantasies into writing, in a way that other people find compelling? Sexuality can be so personal: our own fantasies are so exciting to us, but just describing them doesn’t automatically make them exciting to other people. Even if our fantasies overlap with other people’s fantasies, even if what pushes our buttons pushes other people’s buttons — just a description of what happens in the fantasy isn’t enough to make it exciting. Not to me, anyway. I have to find the real core, what exactly it is about this fantasy that makes it hot for me. That’s really interesting. It’s like therapy.

The other favorite thing is that it gets me off. Sinking deep into a sex fantasy, spending hours with it, closely examining it to find out what makes it hot… it makes my clit hard just thinking about it.

The most challenging things are very closely related to my favorite things…

*****

To read the rest of this interview, go to Greta Christina on Writing Dirty Stories, my interview with Miri on the Brute Reason blog.

Here’s the deal: I’m doing a blog tour for my new erotic fiction collection, “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.” Today’s installment in the tour comes from Miri, of the Brute Reason blog — an in-depth interview with me, in which we talk about what’s fun and hard about writing dirty stories, whether writing smut has changed how I think about sexuality, how my views of religion shaped the religious porn in the book, my favorite story in the collection, the most difficult one to write (surprise! they’re the same), whether stories like mine can help de-stigmatize kink, the ethical obligations of porn writers, and what exactly the deal is with “The Unicorn and the Rainbow.” Many thanks to Miri for taking part in this tour!

And remember — the book is currently available an an ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. Audiobook and paperback are coming soon!

Previous stops on this blog tour:

6/3:
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Is Erotic Shame Real Shame? (guest post by me)
Ozy Frantz’s Blog: Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)
Ozy Frantz has taken down their blog. These posts have now been reprinted on my own blog:
Is Erotic Shame “Real” Shame? (essay)
Excerpt from Christian Domestic Discipline (extended excerpt)

When we eroticize shame… is the shame “real”?

Expand that. When we eroticize powerlessness, helplessness, cruelty, punishment, power-hunger, fear… are these experiences “real”?

Here’s what I mean. I’ve just come out with a porn fiction book, “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.” (Available as an eboook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords: audiobook and print editions coming soon.) The book is, as you might have guessed from the title, pretty darned kinky: it includes dirty stories, meant to be hot and exciting and pleasurable, about fear, helplessness, cruelty, punishment, control-freakery… and shame. (In some cases they’re descriptions of consensual SM scenes; in some cases, they’re fantasies about borderline consent or non-consent.)

I’ve been promoting the book on Facebook, with excerpts. This promotion has resulted in some… conversations, with people who are unfamiliar with kink and are weirded out about how stories depicting such obviously negative experiences could possibly be considered pleasurable by anyone who’s emotionally healthy. And one person in one of those conversations made an argument I’ve seen a number of times — that the shame experienced in consensual SM scenes isn’t “real” shame.

It’s a point I’ve seen made by other kinky and pro-kinky people: SM shame isn’t “real” shame — it’s play-acting, pretend. The line from Dan Savage gets quoted sometimes (it got quoted in the Facebook conversation I’m talking about): that “BDSM is cops and robbers for grownups.” Even eroticized pain sometimes gets referred to by kinksters as “intense sensation” rather than pain.

And I started thinking: Is this true?

*****

To read the rest of this excerpt, go to Is Erotic Shame “Real” Shame?, my guest post on Ozy Frantz’s Blog.

Here’s the deal: I’m doing a blog tour for my new erotic fiction collection, “Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.” The first installments in the tour come from Ozy Frantz, of Ozy Frantz’s Blog — including a guest post by me, Is Erotic Shame “Real” Shame?, sparked by the content of much of the book and by some of the responses to it. Many thanks to Ozy for taking part in this tour!

UPDATE: Ozy Frantz has taken down their blog. This post has now been reprinted on my own blog:
Is Erotic Shame “Real” Shame? (essay)

And remember — the book is currently available an an ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. Audiobook and paperback are coming soon!