Kinky Reading Group Writeup

[trish]

So I attended a kinky reading group for the first time last night. The book, as mentioned previously, was Story of O. (It's organized through the Boston chapter of TNG, "The Next Generation" of kinksters or whatever, which I tend to call "the kinky kids club." I mean, "The Next Generation?" That's kinda creepy to me. But anyway.) There were ten people there, all of us crammed into a table at a bar, five men and five women. Despite it being an 18-35 group I felt kinda young; I think it tended more towards the 35 end, where the coffee-meetup thing felt more balanced. This didn't really bother me; I was worried people wouldn't take me seriously but that wasn't a problem at all. Other people had the kinky expertise (there's so much terminology I don't know!) and I had the literary expertise, and it worked out fine.

The book discussion started off a little tentative but actually got really good for a while. We made comparisons to Justine and talked about the book's effects on the general culture as well as the kinky subculture. ("It's like every damn collar at the Fetish Fair has the Roissy symbol on it.") I have to say that reading it with a critical eye instead of a lustful one turns up a lot of problems --- we discussed those problems but also discussed some of the interesting possible implications of the places where the novel sort of disintegrates, especially the ending. I came up with the idea on the fly of tying it to the Circe chapter of Ulysses --- I need to read Venus In Furs and then follow up on that connection.

When the food came, the book discussion more or less petered out; fortunately, it took a while. I ate sweet potato fries, since I'm vegan and that was about what I could have eaten on the menu. (I could have had a salad, hold the cheese, dressing, meat, and honey-glazed walnuts, I guess.) They were really tasty though, so it was all good :) Talk then moved to more kinky stuff, and in general the taking down of social boundaries; people talked about having non-consensual fantasies quite freely. At first I was like "Oh my God I can't believe you are saying this" then I thought about it for a minute and laughed at myself. After all, I totally have nonconsensual fantasies, probably influenced by reading O and other such books as a teenager. The guy who was talking about "What's the big deal with incest?" was a bit odder, mostly because instead of discussing the topic he was just like "Those objections don't make any sense!" when the rest of that half of the table was like "Ummm, they actually do, kinda..." But even he was talking in a social theory sense and nothing was seriously squicky, at least to me.

We're going to do it again... some Wednesday in December, I think? It was definitely cool enough to be worth going again. I can pass information on to any interested locals, though you should totally get on the Boston TNG list if you want to hear about this sort of thing. (There's a LiveJournal community, but as best I can tell it is totally defunct.) Apparently the next book is The Marketplace by Laura Antoniou. I haven't ordered it yet, but I will shortly; if you want to borrow it from me when I'm done, let me know.

Comments

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

What were the objections to incest? I mean, there are the obvious ones ("Society Will Crush You", and "Your Kids Will Be Mutants"), one of which probably springs from the other. These are, to me, sufficient reasons to avoid having sex with family members. Was there something else?

[mietteloaf.livejournal.com]

Mine was "It transgresses boundaries in the family and that makes things go bad".

[trishkitten.livejournal.com]

Mostly what Miette said. Also "the breakup is just going to suck!"

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

So I dug up The Story of O via some Googling, and I'm most of the way through the second chapter, and I'm, like, bored. The training chapter was kinda hot but then it just seemed to devolve into an endless succession of descriptions of O's outfits. I could hear the author touching herself as she put O into the kind of costumes she was hot for, and I'm like, geeze, can something actually happen outside of O being really really hot for being a fuck-toy?

Come to think of it, every piece of long-form BDSM fantasy I've read starts to have this problem. I get bored with the same thing happening over and over. It was hot when I was still new to the whole idea, and each variation on the general theme was new - but now I'm a jaded old toy.

[trishkitten.livejournal.com]

Something happens eventually, but it does move slowly. I find that if I read it with the intention of putting myself into O's place and resonating with her, the problems of the book and the repetition of the book don't bother me, though I do tend to read bits and pieces rather than start to finish. When I'm reading it like I would read a normal novel, ugh. (Though there are some things of literary interest: check out especially the fourth and fifth chapters to see Anne-Marie and her role, and the gradual disintegration of the book through owls.)

I haven't read much other long-form BDSM fantasy because I'm absurdly picky about the writing style of things I read, and most of them fail sooooooo much. But I'm not surprised. I'll report back on The Marketplace when I get to it...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I kept wondering if the copy I found online was a particularly awkward translation. I did manage to finish it; the owl scene is kinda hot, but then it just... stops.

If The Story Of O was written today, it would be just another unfinished series on one of the sex stories archives. It feels badly-executed in exactly the same way most those do. Long, exacting descriptions of outfits that turn the author on? Check. Awkward, dull segment where the author attempts to deal with the narrative consequences of the choices the characters are forced to make for hotness? Check. Writing that's only polished when describing the kinky parts? Check.

[trishkitten.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's interesting for its role in conversation with other texts and its history, primarily. (That and its being in my mother's nightstand when I was twelve.) As an attempt by a woman to write a parallel to Justine at a time where that was a huge deal? As something published in the literary press at a time when you couldn't do that? As one of the first examples of that kind of fiction accessible to the general public? I think it's worth talking about. But... I don't actually disagree wth any of your criticisms :) Fundamentally, meh. I'm sort of protected because I get off on the literary associations. (Thus, grad school in English. :P )

Got any recommendations for anything better?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I don't disagree with that interestingness. I've read more than a few books that felt like total derivative, generic crap until I reminded myself that they're where the clichés came from. The fact that I could dig around online and find vast quantities of texts that hit pretty much the same highs and lows as O hits tells me a lot about how society has changed, and how the Internet has changed the nature of writing and creating.

Sadly, I can't really think of anything better. The only erotica I've ever read that engaged my narrative sense along with my libido is Phil Foglio's comic book Xxxenophile, which was a series of eight-page SF/fantasy sex stories.

Anne Rice's Beauty trilogy has the "mom's nightstand" position in my life. What I remember of it leaves me quite sure that it would not fare well if I re-read it.