If you were writing 50 Shades of Grey...

@AgathaChristieLover No, you could have a female domme, and in real life, there are probably a lot more dommes with male subs than male doms with female subs. But it's much harder to make a sexy story out of that combination.

I'm writing a series of five BDSM novellas, and one of them will be a switch story, with a strong domme as MC. But I'm willing to bet a lot of money that story will be the least popular of the five.

The crashing in the jungle will have a completely different dynamic if she is protecting him.

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@Ctyolene The only actually sexually appealing scene was when they had vanilla. And even then Ana was thinking about her "subconcious" and her "inner goddess". Way to derail a good sex scene!

This is probably my preference, but I don't like it when they go all "throbbing" this and "girth" that and "heaving" the other thing. Overdescribing anatomy puts me off. Oh, and when they use like 50 different words to describe the same body part.

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@Ctyolene how's it harder to make a sexy story out of a female dom/male sub idea?

(Just curious)

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@AgathaChristieLover If I may put forth one issue I have noticed recently, I think part of the problem (and by no means the whole) is that many men are still threatened by powerful women. Steering clear of the politcal minefield, I am actually seeing this in many reviews and discussions of "Brave." Many (though certainly not all) male reviewers, either didn't get the Mother-Daughter theme, or were angry about it, saying that it marginalized men in some feminist statement. Oh, and Merida is obviously a lesbian because she doesn't want to get married at 15/16. How often are there Mother-Daughter themed films? And some men were outright threatened by it.

So yeah, while more enlightened men are o.k., perhaps even titillated, by women of power, there is still a big portion of our society that can't deal with that yet.

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@KiplingKat I find that extremely sad...

Also, there has to be a lot of mutual power and equality in BDSM relationships, because the nature of the relationship requires a lot of imput from both parties. Most people only see the power of the dom, but the sub has power, in fact the sub has the most power because they are they one's the ultimately choose limits and boundaries and when to stop etc.

We need to get people to realise sex is a mutual, equal thing, no matter what type of relationship/sexual fetish etc is involved.

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@LadyAstor There will be no Inner Goddess in my story. She might have a slight inclination to put her IM in terms of how it would look in a newspaper headline, but that's an occupational hazard of being a journalist.

@AgathaChristieLover It's unfair, but we are hard-wired to find big strong men attractive, even though we live in an enviroment where we do not need big strong men to protect us from lions. We like them handsome too (or at least handsome to us) even though there is no survival advantage in good looks. Somewhere in our subconscious lurks the "Pretty face = healthy genes = strong babies" equation.

In real life, we marry / have sex with men who are shorter than us, and who expect us to sort out the insurance, and we're happy with them, but when it comes to fantasy, it's David Beckman / Richard Armitage who rings our bells, not Danny deVito.

In this book, we want to tap into the primary female fantasy. Though now that I think of it, the H&H both have best friends who might go the other way. Hmm, that's an interesting idea.

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Well, it depends on the person. A lot of women like the Seth Greens, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shia LeBeouf, Toby Maguires, Elijah Woods of the world. Even Daniel Radcliffe qualifies. Geeks are rather big in Hollywood at the moment, but they have always had a following. Witness the popularity of John Cusak. One would not call Tim Robbins an Alpha male, but he is hot. And let's not forget all of Benedict's CumberB*tches salivating over Sherlock each week, or all the female NuWhovians David Tennant brought into the fold.

Even Richard Armitage in person is actually much more of a Beta male then he usually portrays. He has that "boy next door all grown up" thing going on. It is that dichotomy of the masculine and strong, and emotionally available, intelligent, warm, gentle male that revs my engine. Much more than the straight machismo of Gerard Butler or Colin Farrell.

(Actually, watching his interviews, something about him forever says, "Band Nerd.")

And a lot of women 's mating choices are not dictated by genetic contributions. Some woman have no interest in children at all.

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Actually if you think about human evolution, even genetically women's mating choices have been more dictated by intelligence of the male than brute strength, or the species would not be where it is today.

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So Penguin have come back and said they definitely want us to go ahead on the jungle one, here's the contract and can the hero be tortured in some way?

So any ideas of a good torture for the hero, that the heroine (spunky 29 year old journalist) can cure, but which isn't his liking for BDSM?

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@Ctyolene Hero's an actor, right? Maybe he slept his way to the top (or slept with someone to get his first break) and is convinced he doesn't have any real talent beyond his abilities in the sack?

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@SallySlater I was thinking that he is constantly offered pretty boy roles, and is afraid that as he gets older and less pretty, they will dry up. He wants to be taken seriously as an actor, but it has never happened.

But I want a early incident as well. I was thinking that perhaps he was always dom, and he spanked his first serious girlfriend/fiancee, and she freaked. Called him an abuser and called the cops. That would be an incentive to keep that part of himself secret.

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@Ctyolene This is why you're the master storyteller - I like both your ideas. One other thought is that he could keep getting cast as the second male lead, the stereotypical beta male "nice guy" whose heart is always trampled by the female lead and is friendzoned. Would make it that much more shocking that he's a dom. But that doesn't really help with the whole tortured thing so your idea is better :)

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@SallySlater What we thought was that when the story comes to a climax, and he is exposed, he loses out on the role of James Bond/Wolverine/Christian Grey and feels that everything has ended. But suddenly, he's seen as having unsuspected depths and gets offered roles in serious theatre instead which makes him much happier. So when he starts being true to himself his life improves.

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@Ctyolene Given the public perception of the activity in the U.S., because we are extreme prudes compared to most cultures in the world (we are the country that still have anti-sodomy laws on the books, including heterosexual sodomy), that is impetus enough to keep that side of his life secret. That's why almost all people in that community keep their lives secret. If that got out about a movie star, it could well be the end of their career. You don't need to have an incident spurring that motivation, taking part in that activity in this culture is enough.

In fact, BDSM slave contracts are illegal in most U.S. states.

Why would anyone suspect him of having "unexpected depth" without a role to show it? He would have to do something for casting agents to see before he is offered any serious roles.

Will Smith had to do "Six Degrees of Separation" before anyone took him seriously as actor. That allowed him to later do roles like "Pursuit of Happpyness" and "Ali." You will need for him to do an independent film or something first. He might get a friend to give him a shot in a supporting role, but he would not be starring on his first dramatic time out. Producers would be worried about the film being mis-percieved if they put a well known action star above the name.

Let's face it, if you saw "Hamlet, starring Jason Stratham" you would have a very odd perception of that film.

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And why would he spank her without her permission? If he did not stop when she asked him to, then he is an abuser.

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@Ctyolene Love it. I think that will work perfectly. It reminds me (only very slightly) of a wildly successful Korean drama by the Hong Sisters. So in other words, i think people will eat it up :)

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@KiplingKat Penguin is demanding some sort of trauma in his past, and this is Ireland where it's not quite as shocking.

I've seen women after Nimhneach proudly showing off their bruises. If one of them went to the cops and said "Look what X did to me", no matter how consensual it was, it could cause a lot of trouble.

He was a constantly in-work actor, but there was always the perception that no-one would take him seriously if he played anything except the pretty boy parts.

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@KiplingKat They were young and stupid, didn't arrange a safe word. Hell, maybe she was okay with it at the time, then her sister/mother saw marks later and made a fuss, so she claimed it was all him, she hated every minute of it.

There's always been an issue of how can you be a good feminist and reconcile a D/s relationship?

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@KiplingKat I've seen a couple of real life D/s contracts recently (my education is expanding like you wouldn't believe) and they are definitely not about slavery.

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So basically, they are trying to do the same thing James did: Make BDSM something wrong, make it a symptom of an emotional dysfunction.

Man, I hope I never have to work for an editor that uptight and dictatorial. If they have everything so mapped out, why don't they just write it themselves?

Just because a woman wants to be dominated in the bedroom, that does not mean she is yielding to men in every area of her ife, including the rest of a romantic relationship. Anais Nin said that she preferred the man to take the lead in the bedroom, and I don't think anyone would call her repressed or dependent.

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@Ctyolene I think the scenario that her mother saw the bruises and kicked up a fuss would be better. If he did not stop when she said "No" then you have an very unsympathetic hero.

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I can understand correcting structural problem, but dictating a theme? Fark that noise.

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Re: Contracts, that is what they are called. "Slave Contracts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_%28BDSM%29

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@Ctyolene If he was a constantly in-work actor, why would he think everything is over because he did not land one big part? Even if the public had this perception of him, he would know what work he has done.

It's like Armitage when he went to L.A. the first time. He bombed out, couldn't get a single role. So he went back to Britain and remained very successful there. Hardly the end of the world.

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Sorry if I am being too aggressive. I'm just seeing the holes in the character arc. Those things drive me bonkers.

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