A Counter argument to the idea that "forced femme" fantasies are misogynistic

Anyone familiar with my femdom erotica knows "forced femme" isn't a recurring theme. I actually worried when my publisher mentioned on the back cover of my first novel, Courting Her, a scene where Kimberly has Alex clean her apartment in a girly apron. I worried because I didn't want to mislead fans of forced femme. The apron was just one Kimberly happened to find lying around and, like a lot of aprons, it had some flowers on it. The scene didn't have much of a forced femme dynamic. I find forced femme titillating, but it's not an aspect of D/s that comes up in my stories.

It surprised me to discover some women consider forced femme offensive. Because I'm not a woman, I thought very hard on those opinions, but the logic of the argument doesn't speak to me. I don't expect to convince any of them they're wrong, because I don't think they are wrong, I consider it a matter of personal opinion. I expressed as much and was told, essentially, that it's not a matter of opinion. I was told men who enjoy forced femme are misogynists, whether they know it or not.

I have a problem with someone else claiming to know what I think better than I know what I think. But my intention in posting about this subject isn't to argue with people who think differently from me. I'm posting this as a counter point to some of the posts I've found from dominant women. I know a lot of submissive men's first interaction with a real life, openly dominant woman is through these blogs. It can be pretty close to devastating to have a dominant woman tell a man who purports to esteem women that a fantasy he's been carrying around for years is "proof" that he actually hates women and just doesn't realize it.

The logic of the argument is hard for me to follow and so will be hard for me to summarize, but I guess the argument is that because being made to wear panties is humiliating for you, as a man, it must be because you feel like there is something despicable about being like the people, women, who normally wear panties. An analogy I've heard for this side of the argument is that it's like someone wearing black face and mocking African American people.

I thought of an analogy today, that I think works better. Two friends went to rival colleges. The two schools are comparable in every way. Neither friend truly believes his or her school is superior. Yet they brag about their respective alma maters. A big game comes up, and they decide on a wager. The graduate of the losing school has to wear the winning school's sweater out to a bar, buy a round, and toast the winning school. There is some playful humiliation in the loser having to toast the team he or she wished hadn't won.

Forced femme seems like that. We're talking about men who profess to love and revere women. But they aren't women, they're men. Men and women are different. Often those differences are what draws us to each other. Submissive men genuinely love women, they love them for those differences, but that doesn't erase the social influence that they aren't expected to do things mostly only women do, like sit when they pee, or wear panties. So when they submit to a dominant woman who "forces" them to wear women's panties, they don't feel humiliated because they're dressed like lowly women. They feel humiliated because they know they aren't women and are being made to wear something men, in typical society, don't wear.

To continue my analogy, there would possibly be some adamant fan of the winning school who would want nothing to do with a rival to his school wearing the clothes of his alma mater and toasting his school. That's fine. What I think wouldn't be fine would be if he told the winner of the bet that he must hate his school to let someone toast their school in jest. If someone finds that disrespectful, they're certainly entitled to not participate, but I think they're imposing their views if they tell others they should also find it disrespectful.       

Pictures of Me

My novella, Bottoms in Love, will be rereleased soon with a new publisher and with some added content, but I'll blog about that with more information in a few days. My new publisher asked for all my covers to put together an author photo. I was busy with other things, so I zipped them over to her without thinking much about it. Then I got a file back and opened it. Her designer had arranged the covers of my three novels and the new cover for Bottoms in Love and put them over a few different backgrounds and asked me which one I liked. I was completely overwhelmed. I wrote her back that I loved them all, and she agreed and said her designer did a fabulous job, which she definitely had, but what overwhelmed me was seeing what I might look like to someone else. I looked like someone who writes books. If that were anyone else, I might even call him an author.

This immediately led to critical reflection. What the hell is wrong with me? Do I have deep rooted self esteem issues, that it took someone else neatly arranging my covers for me to admit that I'm succeeding in my dream of being a writer? Who knows? Maybe. I tend to think no, though. Anything created, anything built, anything learned loses some of its magic after completion. When you contemplate it, humans walking on two feet and so easily maintaining their balance will fucking blow your mind. Yet most of us walk without ever thinking about it. There's no real mystery in writing a book. You do a little every day and eventually you're done. The possibility feels amazing but as you go you discover it's fun, it's work, and it's fulfilling. There's some mystery in a finished book, but when you wrote it that mystery is replaced by the wonderful memories from a string of writing sessions. As the author it's clear how you got from A to Z because you were there for every letter.

Satisfaction and fulfillment are different from amazement. I love writing and I love writing books. The intrinsic rewards are so incredible they easily make up for the almost complete lack of extrinsic rewards, but feeling fulfilled and satisfied and even proud aren't the same as feeling amazed. And for just a moment the other night I saw all my books in one picture and I was amazed. Then the feeling evaporated. I remembered that I simply wrote those books a page or two or three at a time, and I sat down to write a page for my WIP.    

Crumb on Writing

I recently watched the documentary "Crumb." Robert Crumb was a cartoonist, and quite a few writing craft type moments stood out that I'll share here.

(Spoilers, if you'd rather watch the documentary.)

He was discussing craft with his son, who is also a cartoonist, and his son said something about Robert being rich and famous. HIs dad said, "We're not talking about becoming rich and famous. We're talking about learning to draw."

They also discussed portraits. And his dad told his son to go ahead and cheat a little. They were drawing from photographs and the dad pointed out a slight sneer in the picture and told his son to make the sneer just a little more pronounced in the drawing than it was in the photo. To make the sneer more clear to whoever was viewing the drawing. "Go ahead, cheat a little."

Then he didn't drive, so one time he had a friend drive him around and he took photos of things like power boxes on the sides of buildings telephone lines. Then they showed the photos alongside his cartoons where he recreated them. "See how ugly that is? You can't make that up." He called that photo album his most valuable resource.

He had an older brother Charles, who was also a cartoonist. But he was mentally ill. He became obsessed with writing, to the point where he would not even write words but fill notebooks with wavy lines. It was interesting to compare the two. Robert, who was as eccentric as could be, but managed to still function as an artist. Robert did his own thing, no question, but he continued to do a thing people would at least have a chance to relate to. Charles, due to his mental illness, lost any touch with any possible audience. Charles was extreme, but it made me reflect on where that line is. An artist can create work so easily digestible by the mainstream that some would refuse to call it art any longer. But here, with Charles, was an example of an artist going to such an extreme of not relating to an audience that I don't think anyone could call it art any longer.

Interesting movie, if you haven't seen it, I recommend it. If you have, what were your thoughts?

Courting Her, another fav moment

(Kimberly and Alex call oral sex a princess kiss. I think it becomes clear what a special one is in the excerpt.)


Kimberly propped her head up and met Alex's gaze that had been on her for several quiet minutes. "I want a special princess kiss."

"What's that?"

"It's like a princess kiss, but in a special place."

"Where?"

"I think you know where." She stared hard into his eyes.

Alex lowered his. "Really?"

"Yes, really," she said, as Alex had made the mistake of revealing trepidation. "Your nose has been there. Is a tongue so much worse?"

"Why?"

"Why?" She lay back and looked to the ceiling. "Because it would a wonderful way to be loved and accepted, for one thing. Because it would feel good, for another. Because I want you to think, every time you look at me, that you do that for me."

"I already think, every time I look at you, that you spank me whenever you want, and that I give you regular princess kisses whenever you want."

"Good. This will be another thing, just like that."

Kimberly coming at the moon

(Quick Set-up: After being informed by Kimberly she wants to commemorate their first night in their newly purchased home by denying him permission to come, Alex invites her out of the bedroom and into the living room.)

Alex lay on his back with his head under the window frame, and his legs sprawled out perpendicular. His suffering that leaked from the tip of Cute Thing was an incandescent yellow.

"You can look into the moon during," Alex said.

"It's too light."

"What, are you shy?"

Kimberly scowled. Despite the light of the moon, open windows across the street appeared as black holes. Maybe the dark would hide her. On bent knees, she crossed the room, knelt over Alex's face, and ducked as far as she could under the window sill. "All our new neighbors are going to see my boobs." Kimberly giggled.

Alex didn't respond as his mouth was occupied.

At first, Kimberly kept her nipples concealed with her arm, but her sense of modesty dwindled as Alex performed under her. She pressed her hands against the glass and looked up at the half-moon. Its light drizzled, landing in her yard, where the nuanced green of her lawn shimmered as her body responded to the attentions from her prince. She looked down, where Alex--the rest of his face contorted with the effort of his task--blinked back with placid eyes. She ran her hand through his hair, then looked back up into the sky, gripped the window sill, and bucked hard until she came.

An Excerpt from the novel Courting Her by Gregory Allen, published by Pink Flamingo, available in paperback and as an Ebook. Thank you for reading!

How I Write Novels (Not Prettily)

I begin with a snatch. Wait, not that. I begin with a quick scene idea. For example, Courting Her began with this:

 

"Why didn't you put your feet down when I said?" After Alex takes his feet down from the coffee table not quite swiftly enough to satisfy Kimberly.

 

Protege Mistress started as a short story about a man losing a bet to his shift manager and having to kiss her feet, but the novel began when that short story ended with this:

 

"Good boy. See you at work."

 

From there I'm thinking about the story more than I'm writing the story. I consider and discard directions the story might go in. I'm either writing that initial scene or I'm still writing something else, but that novel idea is growing on some level, not subconsciously but close to that. Those nearly subconscious ideas start to bulge and I begin to feel a pressing urge to get them down on paper, like needing to pee, but I never outline. I probably should but I never do. I jot notes, usually in the form of dialogue, of future scenes, (finding them later is always a bitch) but I keep these story ideas circulating in my head, and it's the fear of losing them all, along with perseverance and dedication and all those noble adjectives other writers possess, that is the main thing that motivates my daily writing.

 

I'm nearing completion of my eighth book, and I just figured out that this is my process, it's kind of a mess. And I'm sure I'm coming off like I'm trying to sound like a creative genius, inventing in a cave instead of a lab, all that. Maybe. There is a romantic element to not outlining and "just being" as a writer. I'm aware it's bullshit. All writers do the same thing. All books are written twice. Once for the authors and once to show potential readers what the authors showed themselves. There are as many ways to accomplish that as there are books that have ever been written. Authors are just people who became obsessed with an idea for a story and do what people who are obsessed do. Authors are nothing special; books are special.   

Kimberly meets Alex's friends, in Serving Her

She snapped the porch light on and Alex got behind her just in time to see his two friends’ jaws drop open. “You’re both here,” Kimberly said.

Alex called hello over her shoulder.

            “Trevor drove, so I could get drunk. I won the coin toss.”

            “Such responsible boys,” Kimberly said. “But no fun! You told me who is who, and I had wanted to guess. Oh well. Come on in.” She stepped back and waved them forward. Trevor and Michael filed in. Alex nodded to them both, rather meekly. Kimberly had already taken control of the greetings, but her tone was so friendly and natural, so upbeat, there didn’t seem anything strange about her command, even though Alex was the one person who knew everyone.

            One time Alex walked up on two undercover policemen busting a group of guys for something, probably drugs. The two controlled the group with sheer hubris, engaging each and moving freely among them. They were simply assertive, and the group wilted to them and remained docile until the parking lot filled with police cars. Of course, they also probably had guns Alex couldn’t see. Kimberly almost seemed to be employing a similar method, except there was nothing disingenuous about the way she addressed Michael and then Trevor. Touching Trevor’s arm and then Michael’s. Moving in front of one then the other. They both watched her in a state of rapture. They barely acknowledged Alex. Trevor presented her with a bottle of red wine. “A house warming present.”

            Kimberly was particular about her wine, and Alex hoped his friends had pleased her with their choice. She seemed impressed, though after scanning the label, she said, “But we’re drinking beer, tonight, right? The fridge is full of it. Trevor, we have plenty of soda, as well.”

            “I can start with beer and switch to soda.”

            The introductions trailed off, but they remained in the hall. It seemed they were all waiting for Kimberly to say when to come farther in. She smiled. She handed the bottle of wine to Alex. “I’m so excited to meet you both.” She moved in and hugged Michael. She slipped in close and brought her arms under his and squeezed his shoulders. Michael’s arms draped lightly around her back. As she drew away and moved in front of Trevor, Alex felt a slight pang of jealousy. Trevor appeared giddily nervous. She pressed close and gave him the same long hug she’d given Michael. Trevor’s arms came around her as tentatively as Michael’s had. The hug was completely innocent and friendly, but Alex wanted to cut in like a suave lover at a ballroom dance.

            Kimberly slipped out of Trevor’s arms. She smiled at Alex and touched his chest as she walked past him, almost teasing him with only a taste of what she’d just given his friends. He had to remind himself he was her boyfriend. He was living with her. Why was he jealous? He clapped his friends on the back as they went around him, following Kimberly like her two new puppies. Alex found his voice. “Are we going to play some cards?”