Confesssion by Stan (used to be Stanleypet)

January 23, 2006 @ 9:16 pm

I can trace my dirtiness - at least my interest in dominance and submission - to a collection of King Arthur stories that i read when I was about nine or ten years old. There was a story in which a knight had the hots for a rich woman. So he would go and fight with HER knights, whom he could always defeat. But at the end he always allowed himself to be overpowered, at which point the opposing knights would tie him under the belly of his horse and parade him shamefully in front of this rich woman. He went through this over and over again just so he could have the priviliege of her attention, even if the attention was contemptuous. And I read that story over and over and over and over … I had no understanding of what it was doing to me, but I knew it was doing something powerful.

Confesssion by OrlandoFurioso

January 23, 2006 @ 9:30 pm

For me, there was first titillation and semi-erotic arousal: lady chatterly’s lover (took me years to realize that in lawrence’s book, assfucking was the best sex!), then dopey Venus on the Halfshell, and Terry Southern..etc…and then, hidden away, I found O, and never looked back. After reading the first chapter, I put it back, nearly hyperventilating with shock–and something else. Not arousal, but something deeply identificatory. I couldn’t stay away. I read it every night, sometimes imgaining myself as O, sometimes as Sir Stephen, sometimes as Monique, sometimes as one of the guards/wardens/disciplinarians of the chateau. But never as poor foolish Renee. That was, for me, the moment you describe, and I have never ever wished it otherwise. No other brilliant perversity has ever matched it, perhaps because of when I encountered it, and how. But, then, what more could one ask for?

Confesssion by jasmine

January 30, 2006 @ 6:40 am

Stan - It’s too bad you don’t still have a copy of that story!

Confesssion by jasmine

January 30, 2006 @ 6:42 am

Orlando Furioso - Monique? Really? I never would have guessed you ever fantasized about being a woman. That’s sort of hot! I like that a dominant man like you can admit that without fear of damaging his masculinity.

Confesssion by OrlandoFurioso

January 30, 2006 @ 5:22 pm

Ah, puppy, you know as well as I that the best doms/dommes have been on the bottom, or at least very thoroughly explored tha aspect of sexuality in themselves and in others. Hence, identification with O sometimes, or even poor pale scared Yvette. But mostly Monique because she is an enigma — cold and aloof, she uses O just like the men do, and doesn’t flinch when O first shows her the rings and seal. And yet she gives herself to Renee–but I always figured that a couple years into it, he’s the one on his knees. After all, Monique is, for him, what he cannot have in Sir Stephen. (It occurs to me that i many have her name wrong; maybe it’s Jacqueline — the roommate, the accomplice, the next girl, etc.) Who knows, but its the polymorphous perverse that rings true.

Confesssion by jasmine

January 31, 2006 @ 2:21 am

Orlando Furioso - First of all I love it when you call me puppy. Second of all yes I totally agree the best Dom/Dommes are the ones that have been on the bottom. I think that is why some of the boys around here love me so much. I’m very good and giving them what they want and need because I know what I want and need when I am in their situation. I’m not real sure about the character names. I think that means I need to read the book again, but I know what character you are talking about and I can totally see where you are coming from, her being to Renee what Sir Stephen was to O - I always though that Renee looked up to Sir Stephen in more ways than as a Mentor I always though that Renee wanted him too. Your right the polymorphous perverse rings true. By the way did you ever read the sequel to The Story of O? I believe it was called Return to the Chateau — a HORRIBLE book. I have to say one of the things I dislike most about BDSM related fiction is the fact that it ALWAYS seems to have a bad ending. Makes you wonder why the authors of BDSM erotic seem so set in their ways that nobody can live happily ever after. Perhaps they are all little emotional masochistic that just really need to be unhappy?

Confesssion by OrlandoFurioso

January 31, 2006 @ 7:17 pm

Return to the Chateau was GAWDAWFUL. Seriously, I remember reading kinkier stuff in the penthouses I used to sneak from my grandpa’s stash. Truly bad writing. Truly boring sex. The beauty of O is that it’s first and foremost a psychological novel, a novel about people, not about hydraulics.

Until the end. She didn’t know how to end it. The book was a love letter and a challenge, but then she had to face the possibility that attaining the beloved (in the books own way) means the end of the fairy tale quest and the beginning of dull normalcy. I think Reage/Anne Desclos may have kept writing and produced the Return for noteriety, or shock value, or out of simple boredom.

The ending isn’t always bad. But I think it so often is because the tendency is to try to become more and more extreme, and the last extremity is death and misery, etc. That’s why I like Bataille, as we’ve discussed long ago — everything freakin starts bad, so there’s nowhere to go but cheerfully into the abyss.

They’re kinda dorky, and a bit tame for the dirtiest girl in the world, and a bit infantile in their focus on the lower bodily stratum (as if Rabelais hadn’t already plumbed that particular depth!), but you might like Penny Birch’s books. Good doses of fun and a deep need to be dirty, without the inevitable spiral.

“Happy Endings” indeed!