do you have bdsm book reccomendations ?
if you’re looking for instruction manuals, not really, as I’m generally a proponent of in person workshops. Like I haven’t read the new topping book or anything. I do read a lot of books with BDSM in it though! And I can also recommend some articles probably.
Anything specific you’re looking for? Here’s a smattering of what I’ve been into lately:
- Macho Sluts by Pat Califia (link to free PDF on Archive.org)
I’ve been posting a lot about Macho Sluts but (a) the introduction is some of the best writing on the philosophy of hornyposting I’ve encountered (b) the phrase “I’m so top I don’t even try to make them come,” has been making me giggle for the last three months. Pat was writing during the feminist sex wars, and his sex positivity feels just as fresh and relèvent today as it was forty years ago.
Also, the introduction is followed by 300 pages of nasty pornography written for lesbians and it fucking rules.
- Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey (link to book on bookshop.org)
This is a lush, fantasy adventure novel. It’s in a setting where there are twelve houses dedicated to different manifestations of eroticism. It’s a world where people are generally bisexual and generally having a lot of sex. The protagonist, Phedre, is marked by a god of pain and as a result experiences incredible pleasure through masochism. She is raised as a courtier, a sex worker, and a spy. She has this incredible entanglement with a sometimes-antagonist woman who is the scion of the god of pain. It’s electric. The prose is purple-y but once you adjust, it sings.
- Sisters of Dorley by Alyson Greaves (link to work published by author for free on scribblehub)
Sisters of Dorley is a book that takes the premise of forced feminization seriously. How would it work to kidnap someone and keep them in the basement? What would you have to subject them to to change their gender? What does life look like for a woman who was forcibly transitioned from being a man?
This is a horror novel to me; as a trans person it gave me nightmares because of how visceral and authentic it was. It’s also SO interesting, and funny, and heartwarming. The main protagonist is an actual trans woman who is nearly self-closeted at the beginning. It’s a deeply thoughtful look at what it means to have a gender and be a woman.
It’s also the reason that I tag things “putting him in the basement” when what I mean is “get this girl on E injections.”
Open call for people to send in other recommendations!
