Celestial Reviews 19 - Sept 13, 1995

Note: Just a few stories again, but these received some high ratings.  
Hope you enjoy them.

      "The Party" by Verity Chastain (D&s) 10
      "The Morning Rush" by StoryMan (Sex in a car) 8
      "DNA" by Stephanie (Transgender) 10
      "Married Love #1" by Unknown Author (Restful,
            romantic sex) 9

"The Party" by Verity Chastain.  This is a story about a woman who 
attends a party given by a close friend who wants to inflict sexual 
pain and humiliation on her.  The woman suffers greatly but finds it to 
be an extremely erotic experience.  As I have said before, I am not a 
D&s enthusiast, and so I am approaching this story as a person outside 
the genre.  My opinion is that the story is well written and offers a 
good representation of that genre.  I would like to raise some serious 
questions about this type of story.  I hope I can do this without 
appearing stupidly critical or incurring the wrath of D&s enthusiasts.  
It is my opinion that most of the people who read and write stories 
like this are sane and at least as harmless to society as I am (and 
that's pretty harmless!)

Please listen to what I am saying.  I am NOT demanding that these 
stories be banned.  I just want to learn something about them, and I 
think a lot of other a.s.s. readers would like to do so as well.  It is 
not entirely reasonable for D&s enthusiasts to assume that these 
stories exist in a vacuum - that only D&s enthusiasts will read the 
stories and everyone else should just mind their own business.  People 
(like myself) who feel uncomfortable with hurting others through sex 
would feel less anxious if we could understand more precisely why these 
stories are considered by others to be enjoyable.  For example, this 
particular story certainly seems to suggest that it is a good idea for 
others to follow the lead of the heroine; and we would like to know why 
that should not be considered to be really bad advice.

Let me first point out some specific strengths of this story.  First, 
it does mention the *safe word* in the text of the story.  According to 
the FAQ from alt.sex.bondage, that's important; and I think it's a good 
feature of this story to mention it.  Second, the characters in the 
story practice safe sex by using condoms when having any form of sex 
with strangers.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the present 
story involves violence and humiliation against a consenting adult - it 
does not rejoice in the degradation of an innocent victim.

Now let me look at the areas of conflict between D&s advocates and 
others.  I'll take an approach that I think is non-confrontational. I 
have some close friends who happened to be gathered at my house this 
weekend.  (Lots of middle aged woman have "club" like this.  It's a 
combination of bonding and nostalgia.)  I showed them this story and 
asked for their reactions.  I think these are normal people.  

All of my friends were initially repulsed by the story.  I then assured 
them that the story was written by an apparently sane person and that 
intelligent people had told me that lots of people who read stories of 
this kind have no intention of ever actually inflicting pain like this 
on anyone else - that they just enjoyed thinking about it.  The 
overwhelming reaction of my friends was, "Huh?"  I went on to say, 
"Let's look for things that we *can* understand about the story."  Here 
are the things we came up with that we did understand:

(1) All of us could understand how a person who has been through 
tremendous suffering would feel grateful to and turned on by the person 
who ended that suffering.  This happens near the end of story.  (Note: 
Although everyone agreed that this was psychologically reasonable, 
nearly everyone also said that it certainly sounded maladaptive.)

(2)  To varying degrees, we all could understand the feeling of being 
turned on while being overcome by a powerful person.  For example, 
sometimes when my husband makes love to me he pins my arms back and 
renders me powerless, so that I couldn't resist even if I wanted to.  
However, I know perfectly well that he will do nothing to degrade or 
hurt me. If I thought he would hurt me, I would avoid being put in that 
situation; and if necessary, I would terminate the relationship with 
him.  Most of my friends reported enjoying similar experiences.  Nearly 
all of those who enjoyed these feelings also stated that they enjoyed 
giving as well as taking - that is, they also liked the sensation of 
rendering their lover helpless.  

In general, we all agreed that the pleasure we saw in this lay in the 
fact that our lover was temporarily taking control of our pleasure.  
All we had to do was "sit back and enjoy it."  They saw no connection 
between enjoying this aspect of "bondage" and the terrible pain and 
humiliation inflicted in the story.  However two of them stated that to 
be honest they had to admit that they would enjoy rendering their 
partner helpless and forcing him to do their will even if he resisted - 
but only if the activity was at least harmless and especially if they 
knew that in the long run he would enjoy it.  An example of this was 
one woman who had been allowed to blindfold and handcuff her husband.  
She had previously rimmed his asshole while he was asleep, and he had 
seemed to enjoy it tremendously (but unconsciously).  During the 
handcuffing session, she gently inserted a dildo into his asshole 
(although he resisted), and it turned out to drive him to a stronger 
orgasm than usual.

(3) We could generally recognize the value of enduring pain as a way to 
demonstrate love.  However, nearly all of us insisted that there had to 
be an obvious benefit to the suffering to make us willing to endure 
pain voluntarily.  (No one suggested that it was a good idea to go 
through pain to demonstrate love for a person who did not deserve it.  
And we generally agreed that a person who inflicted pain capriciously 
would not deserve our love.)  The one women who saw the greatest value 
in suffering as a demonstration of love had been a member of a Catholic 
order of nuns for several years.  The leaders of her order had insisted 
that she show blind obedience to their instructions.  Although she did 
not suffer physical torture herself, she recalled hearing stories of 
"saints" who scourged themselves and showed extreme obedience by 
planting a stick and caring for it so that it would grow (which was, of 
course, impossible).  This woman (who is apparently sane and is now a 
leader in her school's PTA) says that she still admires these saints.  
However, this same woman has not gone to church in the past ten years, 
because she resents the way she was treated.  The rest of us considered 
this type of saintliness to be an example of misguided religiosity.

(4)  We could generally agree that even a dangerous or degrading 
experience could generate physiological sensations that could be 
identified as pleasure.  However, this did not convince us that it made 
sense to seek out such sensations.  This will be discussed later.

Here is what we did NOT understand:

(1)  We generally could not understand why a sane person would accept 
this kind of pain and humiliation.  The level of pain the woman 
experienced from her own husband was actually dangerous.  For example, 
after a night of pleasure with her husband, the woman had welts on her 
thighs, bruises on her wrists, bites on her neck, and two long parallel 
cuts on her shoulder, so she doubted sincerely that anyone could miss 
the damage.  When she went swimming, she had to wear a long, gauze 
black long-sleeved shirt as a cover up.  When she complained to her 
husband, he threatened to add a few more bruises.  Our question was 
this: how are we supposed to tell the difference between this and a 
seriously dysfunctional relationship?  If the woman went to court and 
could prove that she had not given permission, any responsible judge 
would find the husband guilty of serious abuse.

(2)  Although we generally agreed that even a dangerous or degrading 
experience could generate physiological sensations that could be 
identified as pleasure, we unanimously rejected the idea that this made 
it sensible to seek out these sensations.  One of the women used the 
analogy of bulimia.  The fact that a bulimic person enjoys engorging 
himself or herself before vomiting does not negate the fact that this 
process is dangerous to the body.  Likewise, seeking out torture that 
happens to stimulate sexual organs would seem to be equally 
dysfunctional.

(3)  Most of my friends believed me when I told them that I was 
convinced that the world was full nice, kind, adaptive people who read 
and enjoy these stories but never actually submit to such degradation 
or impose it on others.  However, they couldn't understand the logic 
behind such reading habits; and they felt that the overall effect of 
these reading habits would be to increase the likelihood that someone 
would be hurt.  I countered with the argument that my husband liked 
westerns in which the "good white men" blasted the brains out of the 
"ignorant savages" who populated the west and interfered with America's 
manifest destiny.  I told them that he was a nice guy who actually 
contributes to schools for Indian children and who thinks that the 
Indians got a raw deal.  My friends told me that my husband should get 
a life.

(4)  The one woman who had a Masters degree in psychology scoffed at 
the notion that such stories were unlikely to lead to increased 
violence against women.  She agreed that not every man who read such a 
story would increase his violence and that not every woman would become 
more willing to be degraded.  But she emphasized that the evidence is 
overwhelming that people are *more likely* to perform activities that 
they view others being rewarded for in films.  She said that the 
research of Albert Bandura (former president of the American 
Psychological Association) has repeatedly demonstrated this.  She could 
think of no reason why written passages should be different from films.  
When I asked her if this meant that my husband would be likely to 
inflict harm on Native Americans, she said yes - but that it was 
unlikely he would meet modern Indians that closely resembled those 
depicted as savages in the B westerns.  She said that a better example 
was the movie Clockwork Orange, which begins with a violent rape scene.  
When that movie first appeared, there was what she called an epidemic 
of rapes with the same m.o of innocent women in real life.  Likewise, 
she said, movies that show violence between blacks and whites are known 
to lead to racial conflicts; and police departments are so familiar 
with this phenomenon that they increase police presence when such 
movies premiere.

I am aware that I am not presenting the results of a scientific survey.  
I am using my friends to organize and exemplify my own thinking and to 
provoke yours.  I'd really like to know how others feel about this.  
The story is an excellent story - assuming that such stories are ever 
excellent.  However, I think it would be useful to address in an 
objective manner some of the issues raised in this review.  Even 
veteran D&s readers and writers must be aware that there are neophytes 
looking in on a story like this, and these beginners might make some 
serious mistakes on the basis of imperfect information. (Rating: 10)

"The Morning Rush" by StoryMan (an355503@anon.penet.fi).  Have you ever 
wondered how you could make better use of the time you spend sitting in 
the car in those morning rush hours?  This story offers one solution.  
A man who is riding to work with his lover brings her off while they 
are stalled in a traffic jam.  Let me assure you, things like this are 
really possible.  A pretty good little snippet.  (Rating: 8)

"DNA" by Stephanie.(an266891@anon.penet.fi).  About every two weeks I 
get an e-mail message from someone saying, "I know you don't like TG 
stories, but would you mind reviewing this one?"  Actually, my record 
with TG stories is pretty good: I think I've read six of them and rated 
all of them 8 or better.  The reason I don't review more of them is 
simply a matter of time: there are a lot of other stories that I need 
to read and review.  In addition, the good TG stories that I've read 
have been rather long - but worthwhile.

What appeals to me most about these stories is that they tend to be 
clever: they examine interesting "what if" possibilities in creative 
ways.  "DNA," like several other TG stories explores the question, 
"What would it be like if a man were suddenly transposed into a woman's 
body?"  These role-reversal stories almost always look at how a guy (or 
girl) feels when he/she is forced to deal with events from the 
perspective of the previously opposite gender.  This is fun, but the 
basic plot has been tried many times, and it could become boring.  What 
seems to make the idea persist is that authors look for creative 
complications to interject into the plot.  This story has several 
creative ideas.

At the beginning of the story the young man gets turned into a clone of 
his female boss's beautiful teenage niece by a genetically engineered 
virus that alters the recipient's DNA.  The first interesting 
complication is that when the boss needs someone to look after the 
guy/girl while she's away from the house, the only eligible candidate 
is the niece herself.  So we have the guy/girl being looked after by a 
girl who is essentially his/her genetic twin.  Next the guy/girl gets 
seduced by the boss's boyfriend.  Not too unusual so far - but suddenly 
it becomes apparent that the virus can be sexually transmitted, and so 
the boyfriend starts to mutate into another clone of the niece.  
"Fortunately," the mad scientist manages to inject a different strand 
of DNA into her soon-to-be-former boyfriend.  This terminates his 
transformation midway - so this guy/girl has the upper body of a woman 
and the lower body of a man, but a different man than his original 
self.  (Incidentally, all intellectual powers seem to remain those of 
the original owners, although emotions tend to shift with the body 
parts.)  

Interestingly, I found several points in this story when a character 
became angry and could have shouted to someone else, "You can just go 
and fuck yourself!"  This could be taken as a literal rather than 
metaphorical statement - in more ways than one.  You'll have to read 
the story to figure out what I'm talking about.  One unrealistic 
element is that when Julie gets transformed to Jim, her brain continues 
to reside in her head, instead of where it resides in most men. 
<chortle, chortle>

If, like most Americans, you had a really bad biology course in high 
school, you will have the good fortune of thinking that the biological 
aspects of the story are at least remotely realistic.  On the other 
hand, if you are like most a.s.s. readers (intellectually as well as 
sexually acute and inclined to be skeptical about simplistic ideas) or 
went to school in New Zealand, you'll realize that even if viruses and 
DNA worked the way they do in this story, the rest of the human body 
wouldn't.  Don't let that bother you.  Consider the story to be science 
fiction, and know only what the author wants you to know.

Perhaps I'm making this sound too complex - almost silly.  That's the 
value of a story like this - it *is* silly, but silly in a very clever 
way.  I'm not going to tell you any more about the plot.  Read it 
yourself.  I'm pretty sure the virus cannot be transmitted through the 
Internet - except for AOL users using Windows 95.  In that case, 
however, you already have problems that are much more serious than 
having your gender changed.  (Rating: 10)

"Married Love #1" by Unknown Author (an373359@anon.penet.fi).  This is 
not really a full story - just a restful but hot passage about a guy 
and his wife in a state of half-sleep, relaxing and making love.  While 
this story has no character development, it has the advantage of making 
it easy for the reader to project herself or himself into the fantasy.  
I guess this story describes why you'd ever want to bother marrying 
somebody - to have that person always with you for relaxed and loving 
times like this.  Nice story - but I wish authors would make up a name 
for themselves.  I think readers would like to watch for other stories 
by this author; but it will be hard to do so, unless she continues 
labeling them "Married Love #2", etc.  (Rating: 9)