BDSM in fiction

[JagFarlane]

Well considering the recent several posts in regards to popular authors and smut scenes...I thought I'd mention an author whom has done rather well, generally writes science fiction, and other such books. His publisher is Baen books, John Ringo. The reason I felt I'd bring him up is, if you read his books you'll note either hints towards a BDSM lifestyle in many characters to full blown talk of having dungeons. He's been quietly doing this since at least the 90's, and his books are well recieved without massive lashback or the need for much media attention. -chuckles- depending on where you look...BDSM has already gone mainstream

 

[OneLustyWench]

Interestingly also, if you like something with a sci-fi twist, there is Laurell K Hamilton. She has written BDSM into the wereanimal lifestyle with amazingly hot results. Her Anita Blake character has the largest body count in fiction!

Her Merry Gentry series also has a high degree of BDSM. She is one author on my "when does her next book come out" list!

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/lkhamilton/

 

[JagFarlane]

Interestingly also, if you like something with a sci-fi twist, there is Laurell K Hamilton. She has written BDSM into the wereanimal lifestyle with amazingly hot results. Her Anita Blake character has the largest body count in fiction!

Her Merry Gentry series also has a high degree of BDSM. She is one author on my "when does her next book come out" list!

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/lkhamilton/

-nods- Ringos character in the series starting with The Ghost, is very much admittedly into BDSM, and he explores the very dark side of it in the third book of the series. But I just found it funny all these authors started to admit that side to them...when Ringo's been doing it for years, sold over a million books, been on Fox News etc

 

[glynndah]

J. R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series had a main character who was definitely into BDSM. Manacles, blindfolds, restraints, etc.

 

[OneLustyWench]

J. R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series had a main character who was definitely into BDSM. Manacles, blindfolds, restraints, etc.

Oooh really?

 

[glynndah]

Oooh really?

http://www.jrward.com/ Here's a link to her website in case you're interested.

 

[OneLustyWench]

http://www.jrward.com/ Here's a link to her website in case you're interested.

Thanks! I'm always looking for new authors.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I've never read John Ringo, but it's funny you should mention him. Someone-- a man, in fact! on livejournal recently did an essay, entitled "OH, JOHN RINGO, NO!!!!

It makes me want to read the books-- but probably not pay for them.... Ever.

Don't get me wrong, I love BDSM novels, and I write BDSM hardcore. I just don't call non-con/rape/prostitution/slavery BDSM.

 

[JagFarlane]

I've never read John Ringo, but it's funny you should mention him. Someone-- a man, in fact! on livejournal recently did an essay, entitled "OH, JOHN RINGO, NO!!!!

It makes me want to read the books-- but probably not pay for them.... Ever.

Don't get me wrong, I love BDSM novels, and I write BDSM hardcore. I just don't call non-con/rape/prostitution/slavery BDSM.

Well I will admit...Ringos Ghost series has prostitution, slavery, etc etc in it. But the main charrie, in his defense, doesn't force the women that live with him, to sleep with him

 

[Stella_Omega]

I dunno, it sounds like he does a shit load of forcing-- seems that in one book he rescues a group of young teens from the sex slavers-- and then deflowers them. That's what they were expecting, after all. The ones that are over sixteen, that is, the rest he'll wait for.

"You're going to need lots of oysters, bud," Adams said, chuckling as he tossed the former SEAL a towel. "And Viagra stock."

"Chief, they're teenage virgins," Mike said, toweling off. "Viagra is not going to be necessary."

hradzka comments;

Of course, as you will immediately have realized, if he's going to have a harem he needs a harem manager: as Mike puts it, "Women are the root of all evil. And teenage girls haven't learned to use their power for good. There's a reason that harem doors had bolts on the outside." So he flies to Uzbekistan and meets with a sheikh, who provides him with a harem manager, who just so happens to be a twenty-six-year-old supermodel-quality extreme masochist who loves to give blowjobs.

Or this;

when Mike gets frustrated, he hightails it to a brothel, waves a large sum under the bouncer's nose, and gets a pretty fifteen-year-old whore for the day. He brutalizes the young woman, mentally and physically, taking occasional breaks to make her sleep cuddled next to him until he is ready to brutalize her again. It is an awful, gruesome, drawn-out sequence, and if you read it it'll make you sick. But it's not the worst part. That comes at the end, when he gives her a huge tip.

"I'm not particularly proud of that side of me," Mike said as he pulled on his clothes. "It comes out from time to time, but I don't like it. That," he added, gesturing with his chin at the money, "doesn't make up for what I did to you. But... it helps. Both you and me. And I'm sorry for how I treated you, but I was at a point where it was do what I did or kill somebody. And, unfortunately, right now there's nobody left for me to kill."

"Is okay," Magdalena said, pulling the clip off the roll and counting the money. "Not like, much hurt, much... bad memory." She got to the end of the quick count and looked at him again, curiously. "But for this, is okay. Would do again."

"Yeah," Mike said as he holstered his piece and picked up his jump bag. "But then you'd be acting. It wouldn't be the same."

It is probably not fair of me to attack a book I haven't read. On the other hand, one passage like that would ruin the fun for me, damn if I know why!

 

[JagFarlane]

I dunno, it sounds like he does a shit load of forcing-- seems that in one book he rescues a group of young teens from the sex slavers-- and then deflowers them. That's what they were expecting, after all. The ones that are over sixteen, that is, the rest he'll wait for. hradzka comments;


Or this;

It is probably not fair of me to attack a book I haven't read. On the other hand, one passage like that would ruin the fun for me, damn if I know why!

This is true because...when you read about that scene you brought up...they are actually excited to be part of his harem, because of the back story of the region and the fact that he is who he is in the book. Plus...he's also arranging tutors for them, paying them wages etc etc -shrugs-

 

[Stella_Omega]

Oh, I'm sure they were! Because that's how the writer wanted them to be. And of course he wanted the Harem Manager to be a drop-dead-gorgeous pain slut. Natch!

But-- why did he want his character to brutalise a fifteen-year-old whore, and why did he want the whore to say it was okay, despite much hurt, much... bad memory because of the size of the tip?
Mike says; "...But then you'd be acting. It wouldn't be the same." So he makes it very clear that this was no pretend brutalisation. He doesn't want to pretend to beat up a little girl. And he doesn't want the girl to pretend to be scared. Or pretend to be hurt. And he certainly doesn't want prior consent!

I used to read the John D. Macdonald "Travis McGee" series. McGee was such a nice guy, always saving women, always respectful. And then I realised that the author was not. Not a nice guy, not respectful towards women. Sure, Trav respected one woman-- per book, out of the four or so that were introduced. The other three were always skanks and lowlifes. And ALL the women seemed to die in horrible, often-times sexual ways... Men got their heads shot cleanly off, Women hemorrhaged themselves dry after multiple rapes, that sort of thing. When these tropes get noticeable, it becomes the mark of a writer past his prime.

After awhile, you start to wonder just WHY Mike is the King of his little country. Handy, isn't it! John Ringo agrees, as a matter of fact-- Which makes him the coolest trash writer evah!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Note to self: Do not bother wasting life reading John Ringo.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Note to self: Do not bother wasting life reading John Ringo.

Well-- at least, know that the "Ghost" series is going to be waaay over the top... I think a lot of his other work is more better on many levels.

Back to the subject, though, BDSM has always been a little side dish in Sci Fi.
Fritz Leiber wrote some pretty pointed allusions in one or two of his "Lankhmar" series, back in the 70's. E.Howard's "Gor" series spawned a serious BDSM movement that's still going strong!

Anne Rice has a BDSM subtext in everything she wrote, I'd say. And she was completely upfront about it in "Escape from Eden."

 

[JagFarlane]

Note to self: Do not bother wasting life reading John Ringo.

-sigh- I give up...ya read a book by a few chosen passages placed to raise ire. You chose not to read the entire book and learn what the setting was, and understand why the scenes, and the main character were as they were. I learned from the series...my eyes were opened...to the world that sadly still exists...to the worlds of the women being kidnapped and forced into slavery, and how they are treated. Of course we won't go into the main character going into a land that seems stuck in time, ages ago, and giving women the ability to work and be viewed as more valuable than just things to be married off. We won't go into the main character going and breaking up slave rings, and fighting against those whom would kidnap women to turn them into these sex slaves. We won't go into these things because...even though there is more to the book than a few select passages chosen to create ire and hatred, instead of offering an objective view of the books [which I do not blame you Stella for using, that was the information provided to you, I blame they whom argued and well used the books own words to thier advantage.]

 

[voluptuary_manque]

It's just my personal take on the whole thing, I think. Knee-kerk academic that I am, once the subject came into my orbit of awareness, I went out and read Califa and Wiseman. My current understanding is that they are the acknowledged authors du jour on the subject (RL, not fiction). If this is incorrect, do let me know.

Even those two devoted members of the lifestyle state up front that only about a third of the population has any inclination to BDSM, at all, and many of those really aren't more than "light bondage and the occasional spanking" kind of folk. I'm sure that it's extremely arrousing and exciting for the ones who do enjoy it. I wish them all the best

For me, I think I am pure vanilla, though hopefully the pure cream and real bean kind. Too many years in Spec. Ops. has left me with a "violence" switch that is either on or off. I hope to keep it off for the rest of my life. I know too much, am too well "equipped" and am now getting back into too good a shape to use pain for play. Either I'm going to be a completely gentle ol' teddy bear or an enraged grizzly. I've been the latter about once too often and don't want to risk anything like that again. So anything that is likely to remind me of what I could be is best avoided.

 

[JagFarlane]

It's just my personal take on the whole thing, I think. Knee-kerk academic that I am, once the subject came into my orbit of awareness, I went out and read Califa and Wiseman. My current understanding is that they are the acknowledged authors du jour on the subject (RL, not fiction). If this is incorrect, do let me know.

Even those two devoted members of the lifestyle state up front that only about a third of the population has any inclination to BDSM, at all, and many of those really aren't more than "light bondage and the occasional spanking" kind of folk. I'm sure that it's extremely arrousing and exciting for the ones who do enjoy it. I wish them all the best

For me, I think I am pure vanilla, though hopefully the pure cream and real bean kind. Too many years in Spec. Ops. has left me with a "violence" switch that is either on or off. I hope to keep it off for the rest of my life. I know too much, am too well "equipped" and am now getting back into too good a shape to use pain for play. Either I'm going to be a completely gentle ol' teddy bear or an enraged grizzly. I've been the latter about once too often and don't want to risk anything like that again. So anything that is likely to remind me of what I could be is best avoided.

-nods- Believe it or not the big issue that Ringos charrie has is that same On/Off switch and a lot of the books struggle with his attempt to control. Just saying...-shrugs- This'll be my last rant on the book

 

[voluptuary_manque]

-nods- Believe it or not the big issue that Ringos charrie has is that same On/Off switch and a lot of the books struggle with his attempt to control.

Perhaps the author has "been there, done that" and is using his writing as a means of release. So do I. See both Lost and Redeemed and The Round-Up . . . is Over! in my stories.

 

[Stella_Omega]

-sigh- I give up...ya read a book by a few chosen passages placed to raise ire. You chose not to read the entire book and learn what the setting was, and understand why the scenes, and the main character were as they were. I learned from the series...my eyes were opened...to the world that sadly still exists...to the worlds of the women being kidnapped and forced into slavery, and how they are treated. Of course we won't go into the main character going into a land that seems stuck in time, ages ago, and giving women the ability to work and be viewed as more valuable than just things to be married off. We won't go into the main character going and breaking up slave rings, and fighting against those whom would kidnap women to turn them into these sex slaves. We won't go into these things because...even though there is more to the book than a few select passages chosen to create ire and hatred, instead of offering an objective view of the books [which I do not blame you Stella for using, that was the information provided to you, I blame they whom argued and well used the books own words to thier advantage.]

Uh, dude, Ringo agreed with that review. He said he was horrified at what came out of his fingers on the keyboard, and would change it if he weren't afraid of the fans.

But I meant to apologise for taking this so far off track, because the topic that I'm on about is a long way away from the one you started. Really, I apologise.

Mostly, I was mentioning that there's a difference between non-con and BDSM

I ought to start the new thread now....

Bear-- Califia is my hero.