The Pleasure of Unpleasure

by Kristina Lloyd
All writers get bad reviews. If you write erotica, your sexuality gets reviewed as well. Trust me, you sometimes need a thick skin to deal with this. We are all, as individuals, never more vulnerable than when we reveal our desiring selves to others, and smut writers do this on a grand scale. Sure, it’s framed within a fiction and no one can see us blush. But with that distance comes a space which allows strangers to pass judgement.

Here are a few things that have been said about me. I mean, about my books:

Most of the sex scenes are degrading - not arousing.

Great if you like the idea of being humiliated and called slut etc., not so great if you don't.

Ilya is a man who truly doesn't respect Beth in the least, doesn't even like her.

You would think that an erotic fiction book would be at least a little bit sensual

I pitied Beth more than I wanted to be in her place.

One of the worst Black Lace books I have ever read.

I found some of the BDSM disgusting.

Nothing against a kinky read but I don’t like mental abuse in erotic books.

Ouch!

My grumble isn’t really with negative comments; I think it’s par for the course when you’re a writer. And I’m pleased to report, they’re vastly outnumbered by the very many positive, insightful, considered reviews my work has received over the years.

No, my problem is with the way erotic humiliation is so frequently misunderstood, reviled and marginalised. I write a lot about women who get off on being used, degraded and verbally dominated; about rape fantasy; about discomfort, conflict, fear. Pain isn’t my kink. Spanking is off my radar. Rough stuff and psychological humiliation is more my theme although, of course, the physical and the mental don’t form neat parcels for anyone. When I write about this and someone says 'Ew! Gross!', they're saying that what turns me on is wrong.

An editor once reminded me that erotic fiction needs to focus on pleasure rather than be a vehicle for dysfunction. I was so stunned by this I didn’t eat worms for the rest of the week and almost quit my basket-weaving. I am not dysfunctional. I am not damaged. And what on earth is ‘pleasure’ anyway? It sounds suspiciously like scented candles to me. The notion that female erotica should be softer and more romantic is wildly offensive. Ditto the implication that a women who wants to be dominated by a man must be lacking her own mind. She doesn’t want it. She’s merely a victim and it’s her damaged, self-loathing psyche talking. Oh, purlease.

I get a lot of pleasure from unpleasure, from being made to squirm, from hating it and loving it all at once. All those who are with me, say ‘Ay!’ One of the most moving erotic scenes I’ve ever read is in Stephen Elliott’s My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up. The narrator, a male submissive new to the BDSM scene, after hours of being tied, gagged, hurt and demeaned is fucked with a strap-on. Elliott writes:

I had never been entered before. She leaned across my back, wrapping one arm around my chest and gripping my neck with her other hand, occasionally squeezing my windpipe so I couldn’t breathe for a second. I cried again, but it was a different crying. I was very comfortable. I don’t think I had ever been comfortable before.

'Comfortable' might seem an odd word to use in this context but I think it’s perfect. For me, it’s that sense of dreamy, egoless relief that arises in the tension between pleasure and unpleasure. Subspace, to use the jargon. A lot of my characters (jeez, I can’t think who they’re based on) get off on being treated badly, on being distressed, reduced, shamed and scared. They’re not screwballs, nihilists, emotional masochists or lacking in self-worth. It’s a sex thang. They can still function.

Beth, my central character in Asking for Trouble, is a woman exploring her taste for sleaze, danger, submission and humiliation. Ilya is the enigmatic stranger she’s newly involved with. She confesses her fantasies to him: ‘I just like picturing things where I’m being used, objectified, degraded, that kind of stuff. It’s liberating. I’m in someone else’s hands. I’m not being me.’

Once upon a time, academics wrote about Black Lace books and the new phenomenon of women writing porn. One academic, analysing Asking for Trouble, quoted the above dialogue and said, ‘So once again then, we see in the woman who liberates her sexuality and embraces eroticism the simultaneous flight from selfhood.’

Guh? Flight from selfhood? Isn’t half the point of sex the way in which we can transcend ourselves? (What’s the other half? Someone remind me? Oh yes: cock.) In Split, my spooky puppets and bondage novel out early next month (US, January), I explore what submission and degradation mean a little bit more. Kate is falling in love with Jake, the strange and beautiful curator of an isolated puppet museum in the Yorkshire Moors. She’s gradually coming to understand how the power imbalance of their sexual relationship fulfils her:

He breaks me down, strips me of inhibitions and when I’ve sobbed and climaxed until I don’t know who I am, he wraps me in his arms, so soft and tender.

Do I sound like a masochist? I don’t feel like one. The point isn’t the pain and I don’t suffer. Or rather, I go beyond suffering and into a new space. If I could get there without it hurting, I would. I think that’s why I like it when Jake calls me ‘slut’ and makes me feel bad. It takes me there, helps me lose myself […] and it’s as if I’m in a nothing space, floating. I am so free there.

It’s such a feeling to be free of yourself. I didn’t understand it at first. I think it scared me but I’m getting to know and understand it. I’m coming to realise that I want this not because I’m worthless and I must suffer. It’s because I’m human and life’s tough. Letting go is so powerful. Surrender transforms me. I adore oblivion.

Kate, like Beth, is a woman conflicted about her sexuality. I think this is true of a lot of people whose kinks are on the dark side, and I think this is OK. We hear a lot about ‘sex positivity’ and having a ‘healthy’ attitude; and while I applaud the sentiment it leaves me feeling a tad uncomfortable. It seems so neat, clean and tidy, and leaves little space for angst or doubt. Where we want to go and what we want to do or be done to us can be disturbing, terrifying, upsetting and exciting. It’s pleasure but not as they know it. Accepting conflict and contradiction is a significant part of accepting our messy sexual selves. I’m sure ‘sex positive’ was originally meant to encompass this but it’s easily miscast to imply unproblematic happy-jolly-fucky sex. It can make me feel dirty, and not in a good way.

I like brutes and bullies with a nice line in contempt. I like back alleys, seediness and squalor. I like scary scenarios that make my heart beat faster. All these things break down the ego and strip away the veneer of the civilised self. And when you’re without that constructed identity, when your dignity and self-respect have been put on hold, then boundaries shift, inhibitions are lost. If anything, those who like to indulge in being broken down need to have a very secure sense of self. They must be continually piecing themselves back together again afterwards.

I imagine a scene. To some eyes, it may look like a woman on her knees in a crack den, sobbing in shame with her hair full of piss, being mocked by a couple of thugs. But for plenty of people, suffering and degradation is intensely erotic. It’s the pleasure of unpleasure, of being split between yes and no. I like it there. I’m comfortable. The scented candles can go hang!

Our Sexual Fantasies

I am anonymous.

I’ve written more pornographic works of fiction than you’d care to imagine. I want you to be anonymous too. I want you to log out of your blogger accounts and talk dirty to me. I want to hear your sexual fantasies and I want you to hear mine.

Fantasy can be a paler version of reality or it can be an end in itself, allowing us to imagine what we can't or would rather not try. Here are three of mine.

Sshh, gather round. Draw the curtains and promise not to tell.


Fantasy 1
I’m in a room like a large prison cell, all whitewashed walls and tiny, barred windows. I’m naked and hog-tied, suspended on the horizontal, my legs held open by the ropes. Leaning casually against the wall, a gang of mean, muscular soldiers are watching me. They’re grimy and shaven-headed, and they’re wearing camouflage pants and dirty combat boots. They’re waiting till it’s their turn to fuck me or stick their cock in my mouth. I feel exposed and ashamed, horribly aware that my cunt is on display and I'm wet.

One guy strides forwards, unzipping. He’s brawny and arrogant, and I sway on the ropes as he moves between my thighs. He penetrates me, gripping my hips as he pounds hard and fast. The other soldiers are smiling and sneering. Another steps forwards. ‘Make her suck your dick,’ says someone, and he does.

This fantasy doesn’t have an ending. It’s not that kind of narrative. More men fuck me. ‘Can she take another?’ ‘Yeah, she's a slut.’ Sometimes they leave me alone, or push me on my ropes. I sway gently. I might get impaled, mouth or cunt, on a cock or dildo. They laugh, making jokes and talking about me as if I don’t exist.

Fantasy 2
I’m a subject in medical research. I’m naked, strapped in one of those reclining, gynae chairs, my knees bent and fixed open. I’m hooked up to monitors and various bits of bleepy, flashy equipment.

There are two guys in white coats, one by my side holding a clipboard, the other standing between my thighs. They’re friendly but aloof - professionals interested in my reponses not in me. The guy between my legs examines and touches me – my breasts, cunt and inner thighs. He crouches down to study me, peeling my labia apart and holding me open. Standing, he deliberately arouses me, reporting his findings to his colleague: ‘She’s getting very wet’ or ‘I think she’ll come soon.’ Sometimes, he gives me a kind smile. ‘Is that good?’ he’ll ask, working his fingers inside me.

Fantasy 3
It’s night time and I’m walking down an alley in a seedy part of town. On the street I’ve just left, there are shabby strip joints, neon signs and narrow doorways. A man steps out of the shadows. Before I can scream, he slams me up against the wall, clamping his hand to my mouth.
‘Shut it, bitch,’ he hisses, fumbling with his fly. I’m fighting back, screaming into his hand, but it makes no difference. He’s strong, he’s horny and can overpower me without much trouble. He enjoys his strength and the fact he can torment me. He grins. ‘You’re going to like this,’ he says, slowly jerking his cock. He fucks me up against the wall. He’s rough and ruthless, grunting and panting. Sometimes he orders me to turn around and he fucks me from behind. Sometimes, he forces me to my knees, clutching my hair in his fists as he fucks my mouth.

Again, this fantasy is never ending.

*
So where will you to take me? What goes on in the murky corners of your mind? What are you thinking when you’re on the edge of coming?

I don’t care if you’re man, woman or undecided. I don’t care how pretty the writing is. Give me scenes, give me snippets, give me truth. Put your inhibitions away with your identity. Be anonymous. Be brave. Be yourself.

Let’s melt this blog.

What is it? Go on, I’m listening.

*

The Deprexor pic is © Steve Savitz. Steve's a friend of, um, Kristina Lloyd. Kristina is, er, a friend of mine too and she's kindly posting this on my behalf to preserve my anonymity. I'm so grateful. I may even read her dirtiest book. I'm told it's really hot.

Female fantasies of female submission

by Kristina Lloyd

I know it’s all tinselly and the lights are so pretty but I’d like to talk about sex with dogs. Or, more specifically, about Nancy Friday whose collection of female fantasies, My Secret Garden, caused such a fuss when it was published in the 70s. Why? Because it was so dirty. For the first time, ordinary women were voicing their lusts, and society was appalled. Many scenarios centred on female submission and rape fantasy, and women, they complained, surely didn’t think like that. In Women on Top, published in the 90s, the submissive fantasies had largely disappeared to be replaced by those of dominatrices, closet lesbians, and a rather high incidence of gals who dreamed of getting it on with the family pet.

I don’t know where Nancy was getting her data from but the implication was that, thanks to feminism, women’s fantasies had suddenly got healthier. OK, so doing it with Fido might not sound that healthy but it does neatly evade the gender politics inherent in your more average hetero, human shag.

Today, there’s plenty of evidence to show that fantasies of female submission are still immensely popular. A fem sub fantasy can be anything from a good, hard kiss against a wall, to a mild spanking, to a hardcore gangbang in a fully-equipped dungeon. What all the scenarios have in common is that he, our object of lust, is the boss. We can flip this notion on its head and declare it’s actually the woman calling the shots: as the fantasist, she’s in control of events; as a role-player in BDSM games, she probably has a safeword to mean ‘stop’. This might be true but, for me, it misses the point. And the point is: many women get off on thoughts of being dominated by a man. Or by a couple of them. Or by a whole, badly-tattooed football team in a massive hot tub. (Oops, there goes another of my secrets.)

Not surprisingly, in our postfeminist age, this can make us uneasy. Our fantasies seem to be in direct conflict with our real-life hopes and expectations. But consider the inequalities of the society we’ve been brought up in, and it’s easy to see why these fantasies are so common. In our culture, nice girls don’t, and dreams of being overpowered absolve us of responsibility and guilt. The fantasy dom is also extremely useful because he knows exactly what we want and he’s staying in control – of us and himself. We don’t have to ask for a thing. We don’t have to try and please. Take a look at him. See? He’s already pleased. Very. And all you’ve done is show up. Heck, what a relief.

The desire to be desired is, I believe, at the heart of erotic fantasy. We can imagine ourselves to be so goddamn gorgeous that our man, Mr Slightly-Twisted Alpha (back off sister, he’s mine), can’t control his base, animal instincts. He wants it, and he wants it now, and our cries of ‘No, stop!’ don’t mean jack shit to him. My imagined man is seldom someone I’d want to have dinner with. But then it’s not his mind I’m after. It’s his smouldering masculinity, his arrogance, his charisma, his cracking pair of thighs. The dominant male archetype is something we’ve all been brought up with, inside the home and out. He’s there in film, books and TV. He’s Tarzan, he’s daddy, he’s the bogeyman in the dark. He’s the bank manager, he’s Shakespeare, he’s Heathcliff, he’s God. He is, in short, the product of centuries of male social superiority. Small wonder he’s so hard to knock off the top spot.

The fem sub scenarios I like to read and write about are fairly dark, grubby acts tinged with danger. I’m not into elaborate, ritualised behaviour or heavy equipment. I struggle to read fiction where the bloke is referred to, without irony, as 'master', 'sir' or, heavens above, 'He'. This stuff leaves me cold. I can’t see the characters for the role-play. Its world is artificial. I prefer my fem subs to be ordinary, believable women who are perhaps uneasy about what butters their muffins. I want conflict, internal and external. I’ve written about rape fantasy. Sometimes it’s called ravishment, being taken, forced submission or consensual non-consent. It sounds better phrased that way but it amounts to the same thing: he made me do it, and it was raw, scary, debasing, sweaty and hot. (And here I'm obliged to add, for the hard of thinking (Wow, you made it this far? Here, have a biscuit.): no woman wants to be genuinely raped. As a concept, it's really not that tricky to comprehend.)

In Asking for Trouble, my second novel, Beth agrees to play a game with Ilya, a virtual stranger, in which they explore fantasy. Reluctantly, Beth admits to having rape fantasies, making it clear it’s fantasy. They agree to a safeword but the stakes are high: not only does the safeword stop a particular sex act, it also ends the relationship, no questions asked. In one scene, Beth and Ilya are angry. Ilya wants to fuck. Beth doesn’t. ‘Well then,' says Ilya. 'This is shaping up to be a pretty decent rape fantasy, isn’t it?’ He squashes her against a wall, his hand clamped to her mouth. Beth, whether she wants to or not, is unable to utter the safeword.

This is a key moment. Ilya has denied Beth the right to speak. He has taken her out of the game and his power has become purely physical. Language is political. Language makes us. Language separates us from animals. When Ilya silences Beth, they are no longer equals in the game - or in the world - and fantasy has become too realistic.

In the book, I really wanted to make this point. I wanted to highlight the importance of distinguishing fantasy from reality. Sure, there are overlaps for us all but in this instance, the line has to be clear. Ilya, in using his muscle against Beth, is effectively stealing her fantasy by twisting it in something else.

In our culture, female sexuality has been silenced for too long. Feminism has finally given women a voice, allowing us to articulate our desire (even if sometimes that amounts to little more than ‘uh, uh, yeah’). It’s crucial we speak and allow ourselves to explore and enjoy our fantasies, even – perhaps especially – the dark, troubling stuff. Our desire has been denied and distorted for centuries. The last thing we need to do is silence ourselves.

I’m an enlightened, independent woman with a filthy, overactive imagination. I consider myself a feminist. Why wouldn’t I? And I’m happy to say (and I’ll say if for you if you’re shy): I love a forced submission. I love those arrogant bastards.

Anyone else agree? Anyone else say ‘uh, uh, yeah’?

Kristina Lloyd

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• Asking for Trouble has just been reissued in the US alongside Black Lace releases, Dark Designs by Madelynne Ellis and Sex and Shopping. Scroll down a couple of posts to enter our amazing giveaway competition, featuring these 3 books and many, many more!


• To read more about Asking for Trouble, click here. To read an extract, click here.


• The image at the top of this post is copyright Kristian Purcell and is used here with kind permission of the artist. Take a look at Kristian's website. His work is lovely.

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