Three book reviews for you this week including the erotic fiction book that’s captured an incredible amount of attention called, 50 Shades of Grey by FL James.
Click Here <=== Transcendent Sex [Book Review]
Click Here <=== Red-Hot Monogamy [Book Review]
50 Shades of Grey is an erotic novel. It’s a story of a young woman, Anastasia Steele who meets a business titan with a penchant for “power play.”
Power play is a kind of sexual role play where there’s a pre-agreed structure for interaction between a dominant and a submissive partner. Power play often includes forms of kinky sex, mostly where the sub does what the dom tells them to. Because it’s mutually consensual and stays within the boundaries of the agreement, couples can make up any rules that suit their fantasies and desires.
What I think is so amazing is that this book has been read by so many people and it’s about this subject, which is not mainstream sexual behavior.
Last week when I interviewed Adam Armstrong about Sexual Domination and Dirty Talk was the first I’d ever editorially covered anything in the kink, BDSM or power play category.
Ultimate Orgasm Techniques <=== Listen or Download Free MP3
Or “right click” and “Save target as” or “Save link as” to download:
Power play is simply a more heightened variety of sexual domination. In sexual domination, a man might hold his woman down while kissing her or making love, or might pick her body up and move it around, either into the bedroom or into a position. It’s about one person taking the lead and the other surrendering (always within the boundaries of mutually agreed upon comfort) to the leader and enjoying the experience being created.
Think about the last time you got a professional massage, or a pedicure, or a haircut. Your expert did their work and you surrendered to their expertise and allowed them to “have their way.”
That’s the trust that power play couples have with each other. The foundations are trust and surrender.
Trust and surrender are the foundations for a healthy sexual relationship across all kinds of lovemaking.
For a woman to open herself sexually to her man, he must create a foundation of trust into which she can surrender.
Women are dying for their lovers to take the lead, provide the vision for the lovemaking, take her on an erotic journey balanced with safety and variety or novelty.
All the fundamentals are still there. Desire is created from the magic combination of risk (variety, novelty) and safety (trust).
I read somewhere recently that erotica is one of the reasons women love their iPads, Kindles and other eReaders. They can privately download and read erotica, which is simply sexy romance – the bastion of female literature consumption.
Consider 50 Shades of Grey a story illustrating power play which is evocative to most women. Being told what to do sexually takes us “off the hook” for being responsible for our sexual desires. For many women, cultural or religious shame tamps their desires and the only thing that gets them out of their shame state is to be dominated by the lover.
For women fortunate enough to have a trusted lover who is also a leader, she can “ride his ride” knowing he’ll never do anything but bring her pleasure and she can surrender like putty into his hands and respond to the ways he’s stimulating her without her being required to “think up the sex.” She thus can relax and come for him and enjoy herself. (No reason you can’t switch roles, of course, but in the masculine:feminine polarity, somebody’s gotta lead and somebody’s gotta follow, capish*?)
Our culture has also emasculated our men such that they’ve become afraid to sexually lead their woman.
50 Shades of Grey illustrates how big our cultural appetite is for power play in the bedroom.
If you’ve wanted to have your man step up and lead you erotically, tell him. And give him as much detail about what would make it sexy for you and where your boundaries are.
If you are a man who craves to take the lead but are unsure exactly how to start without potentially alienating your lover, talk to her. It’s very likely that she’d enjoy you taking the lead and has some ideas of her own.
Start here with my interview with Adam Armstrong about Sexual Domination to learn more.
Ultimate Orgasm Techniques <=== Listen or Download Free MP3
Or “right click” and “Save target as” or “Save link as” to download:
Bottom line. If you have ever fantasized about being dominated and you like reading simple romance stories with an edge, you might enjoy 50 Shades of Grey.
Personally, it wasn’t readable to me because it was sophomoric, poorly written and not sensual enough for my personal tastes.
I’ll send my copy of 50 Shades of Grey to you free if you post your opinion of this review below on the blog comments and I like your opinion best (doesn’t have to mirror my opinion).
*Capish. do you understand? from Italian ‘tu capisci?
With love,
Sloane Fox
7 Responses
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I have read all three of the 50 Shades Trilogy and I feel as if I have been allowed to enjoy erotica at the ripe old age of 50+. It may not be a classic but it touches a chord and one finds oneself identifying with Ana and Christian with their struggles and problems. The books also encourage us to let go with our sexual feelings and masturbate whilst reading it! Secretly we women want somebody to take charge in the bedroom and 50 shades makes us want more sex and that can only be good for our reltionships.
Pat
Pat,
50+ ain’t nearly ripe yet.
And yes, we women not-so-secretly want men to take charge in the bedroom.
You said it, sister!
Thanks for posting, reading and being cool.
Susan
I have not read 50 shades of grey yet, but have read a number of reviews
and have heard several women praising it…
Having one foot in the BDSM scene…
I think it’s a great awakening for the Vanilla world to embrace this kind of
sexual experience…. and to demystify the dark reputation BDSM has had to endure.
This book is accessable and being networked word of mouth across the nation
and beyond and changing the minds of many.
Hopefully people practicing safe consensual BDSM practices will no longer be seen as sexual deviants or charged as being mentally challenged.
I read a review from a woman who was kinky saying her mom & Sister had a hard time
accepting her practice… But after reading 50 shades of grey, both Mom & Sister were more
accepting & understanding of her….
When we open people’s minds and create more tolerance, what’s so bad about that.
I look forward to reading all three books….
SS
There are as many shades of BDSM as their are shades of gray, right? For some women, they’d like nothing better than to surrender to a dominant lovemaking master and just enjoy. Too bad BDSM scares people as it has so many components of sexual polarity.
Fifty Shades of Grey has given permission to women (including myself) to enjoy erotica. This book along with your videos, articles and suggestions has opened an exciting new world for me. I have always been sexual, but now, at 68, I am sexually free. At the same time I am concerned that perhaps I really don[t want a “real” relationship but just wonderful, deep, unabashed, fun, creative, adventurous, fulfilling sex.
Yes, the book is not a masterpiece, but it touches emotional and physical strings in women. (yes, including myself). It permits me not only to be titilated and even masturbate while reading it, I was also able to identify with Christian and Ana and feel empathy for their mutual struggles and doubts. The success, I believe is a combination of our humanity AND our sexual needs. And yes, I too believe we women want to be guided and lovingly told what to do and have the right to say “yellow” or “red.” Shades has started an open, honest and freeing dialogue in a hypocritical world. I would love to share, talk and consult more with you. I was afraid to put my real name, but if you go to my website lindanacif.com, or youtube.com Sexiest Grandmother, or Linda Nacif, or google me, you might find we have many similar interests. As a caveat, for 25 years I was married to an Arab who thought I wasn’t a virgin because I didn’t bleed and then kept me to himself for our married years….much more in the future.
Thank you and Christian and Ana for freeing us and for knowing it is never too late
I agree with you, i like power play and i have the chance of practicing it on a man, who is very rich and powerful in real life and who pays me to worship me ad submit to me. He like to be flog and dominate…and i love when i submit her and have him lick my pussy for hours… Anyways it is a fun scenario that we have developed over years… and it work for us and it is fun. This being said, it is true though that man are shy to take the lead sexually and i know more submissive man… than dominating type…But i agree that even though i am a dominatrice i could be a switch.. if i find my master… Sorry if my english is not proper… i am french..Au plaisir.
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