The Wombat's Book Blog

Seriously, guys. I don't know how it happened. Maybe it's like when I was twelve and I drank so much Lemon Twist that now I can't even smell it, but I'm completely over it.

And that's tragic, because Kristen Ashley has a BDSM-based series which I'd really like to read, but I just know it's going to piss me right the fuck off.

I think a large part of the problem I'm having is that many books featuring BDSM, or even just run of the mill bedroom dominance without the label, have serious consent issues. I'm thinking of a particular book (the name of which I can't recall) where the hero essentially told the heroine that he doesn't do safewords and limits, so he demanded a sort of blanket consent from her. Which is fair enough as far as that goes, and if that's your thing then more power to you (TPE is a thing, I know that) but it wasn't her thing. She didn't like it, and it made her uncomfortable, but she did it anyway, and that was kind of icky to me.

There's also the thing that in many books with a BDSM theme (I know KA isn't guilty of that) you have a hero who is dominant and often involved in the lifestyle, choosing to pursue a heroine who is not in the lifestyle, and then pressuring her through a variety of ways to join the lifestyle.

So you have a hero who likes doing things that the heroine doesn't understand, have much knowledge of, or in especially bad cases, enjoy, and he's insistent that she join him in his world.

Which is completely fucked up. I mean that sincerely. If you pressure someone into consenting to something, whether you're using emotional blackmail or force, that's not fucking cool, okay? 

Anyway so that's what I had on my mind this morning.