Naked Reader Book Club Discussion: Best Bondage Erotica 2012, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Thursday, March 15th, 2012 @ 8pm ET)

Contributor: Rayne Millaray Rayne Millaray
Welcome to the Naked Reader Book Club! Sadly, this is the last meeting of the club. Authors Sacchi Green and Kristina Wright, and Brenda Knight and Kat Sanborn from Cleis Press will be joining us to help us say goodbye to this club and all the awesome times we've had!

Tonight we will be discussing Best Bondage Erotica 2012 – edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Mmmm... bondage. A silk scarf being tightened around a wrist. A piece of rope being wrapped around ankles. A bandanna pulled taut between pouty lips. Yes, there really is something to be said for bondage, don't you think?

Best Bondage Erotica 2012 fully explores the joys of restraint with stories from top-notch (pun unintended) writers who have mastered the bondage fiction. Editrix extraordinaire Rachel Kramer Bussel lets the reader in on the subterranean world of forbidden desires and sexual fantasies that shock and scintillate as they mesmerize. How do you want to be teased, tied, and tantalized? Best Bondage Erotica 2012 covers all the ways you can get your kink on with stories of spanking, corsetry, rubber, crossdressing, handcuffs, robe, and pleasures that push into new, and exquisitely delightful territory. Surrender to the intense eroticism of bondage and fetish in full flower.

From the back cover:

Whether you prefer a tough top with shiny handcuffs, the tug of rope on your skin, or the sound of your lover's command, Rachel Kramer Bussel serves your needs. Her Best Bondage Erotica 2012 imagines all the ways you can get your kink on with stories of spanking, corsetry, rubber, cross-dressing, handcuffs and BDSM play that push into new and exquisitely delightful territory. Helen Sedgwick's narrator is overcome by the unbearable intoxication of submission in "Cumaná," and a reluctant participant in Giselle Renarde's "Dry Rub" learns that the body never lies when it comes to pleasure. A dominant woman comes into her own erotic power in Teresa Noelle Roberts's "Suffer for Me," Shoshana Evers's intriguing "Melting Ice" is a lesson in anticipation and self-bondage. As Midori advises in her foreword, "Share this book with your lover...or lover-to-be."

With contributed stories by Shoshana Evers, Elizabeth Coldwell, Andrea Dale, A.R. Shannon, Lucy Felthouse, Salome Wilde, Elise Hepner, Kay Jaybee, Teresa Noelle Roberts, Giselle Renarde, Craig J. Sorensen, Elizabeth Silver, Billey Thorunn, Helen Sedgwick, Lana Fox, Tenille Brown, Kathleen Tudor, Valerie Alexander, Lolita Lopez, Neil Gavriel, and Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Whether you've read the book or not, everyone is welcome to join the Naked Reader Book Club discussion! If you have had a chance to read Best Bondage Erotica 2012, feel free to drop in and give us your opinion on this book.

Because this is our last meeting, the theme of the night will be "Memories." Tell us your favorite books or authors or discussions. We'd love to hear what you enjoyed about the club.

Cleis Press asked us to express their gratitude. They've had a wonderful time hanging out with everyone, talking about the books they publish and learning from their readers. You can contact them here:

Cleis on Facebook
Cleis on Tumblr

Brenda Knight, Associate Publisher
Cleis Press & Viva Editions
2246 Sixth Street Berkeley, CA 94710
tel: 510-845-8000
email: bknight@cleispress.com
Twitter: @lowerhaightbk

Kristina Wright
email: kristina@kristinawrigh t.com
Kristina Wright's Website

Sacchi Green
email: sacchigreen@gmail.com

Kat Sanborn/Top Kat
Cleis Press and Viva Editions
tel: 510-845-8000
fax: 510-845-8001
email: ksanborn@cleispress.co m
02/16/2012
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Contributor: miked4d69 miked4d69
Quote:
Originally posted by Rayne Millaray
Welcome to the Naked Reader Book Club! Sadly, this is the last meeting of the club. Authors Sacchi Green and Kristina Wright, and Brenda Knight and Kat Sanborn from Cleis Press will be joining us to help us say goodbye to this club and all the ... more
hmm sounds interesting!
02/20/2012
Contributor: Sir Sir
I cannot wait to be at this one!
02/22/2012
Contributor: Blue Koi Blue Koi
I'll see you Tuesday, but I'll miss our erotica encounters.
02/23/2012
Contributor: Brusselsbrat Brusselsbrat
Can't wait!!
02/28/2012
Contributor: Petite Valentine Petite Valentine
Aww... I just got back and you're leaving?

You guys have been awesome, I look forward to saying au revoir in style.
03/04/2012
Contributor: tigertiger tigertiger
Quote:
Originally posted by Rayne Millaray
Welcome to the Naked Reader Book Club! Sadly, this is the last meeting of the club. Authors Sacchi Green and Kristina Wright, and Brenda Knight and Kat Sanborn from Cleis Press will be joining us to help us say goodbye to this club and all the ... more
hmm that looks pretty interesting
03/05/2012
Contributor: Rayne Millaray Rayne Millaray
Doesn't it sound like fun? There's going to be some prizes, too! Hope to see you there!
03/06/2012
Contributor: Sacchi Sacchi
Here's something to get you in the mood ahead of time; legendary dominatrix Midori's Foreward to Best Bondage Erotica.

Foreword: USE THIS BOOK FOR YOUR KINK LIFE

Seething—the passion stirs just beneath the skin. Engrossing—the desires capture and take possession. Arousing—the senses take fire, fueling desire. Lust for bondage does that to people. In this book, you’ll read what happens to those who give in to their cravings. At once taboo yet ubiquitous, bondage is the stuff of fantasy for a shockingly large segment of the population. The next time you’re sitting in a café, or walking down the street, ponder those around you. Who may be harboring such dark desires as are found in these pages? Is it the black-clad hipster with the latest gadget? Maybe it’s the mom with kids in a stroller. Could it be the prim matron with her “ladies who lunch”? Many of these clan- destine bondage lovers have even taken the big leap to turn their hidden fantasies into flesh-straining, sheet-drenching reality. Have you taken that leap? Would you? If not, why? There are risks, to be sure. But what’s life if not lived with some risk? Behind every reason for avoidance of erotic adventure and sensual fulfillment lies fear. What do you fear? Does the thought of unbridled pleasure frighten you?

As you read these tales, put yourself in the characters’ shoes, bonds, boots or collars. Which adventure would you be willing to take? What would it take for you to go there?

While some of the stories in here come wholly cut from the cloth of pure fantasy, I’d wager that more than a few are based on real-life kinky escapades. I might know which ones those are, but I’m not telling. You’ll just have to read through each one and speculate.

Then contemplate if you could endure the delicious torments described on page after page. If you long to be captured, would you moan and writhe as the protagonist did? Or would you carry on stoically? Would you simply combust with unimagi- nable pleasure?
If you crave to seize and seduce, could you be as clever as these wicked tops? Would you be able to delay your primal urge long enough to devise slow, sweet anguish? Which of these Dominants would you want to co-top with? Or perhaps your desires are darker and more depraved than you would care to admit.

As you turn from one story to another, pay attention to the stirring between your legs. If, when reading some stories, your mind protests, but your sex swells and throbs, give particular focus to these tales. They’ll reveal your hidden appetites. I hope you’ll delight in them.
Bondage is a pleasure of the mind just as much as it is of the flesh. When it comes to actualizing our desires, all too often we focus on the actions rather than the intricacies of the mental and emotional joyride. To go deeper and fly higher in bound delight, we should ask “why” we want to do this, just as much as “what” or “how.” While purportedly fictional, these stories give crucial insights into what makes some experiences positively explosive.

If you’ve ever wondered what makes your partner tick, how to make a scene hotter, or you are just unsure of what to do with all the gear, read these stories. You’ll get fabulous ideas.
For a truly devious way to exploit this book for your erotic advantage, share this book with your lover...or lover-to-be. Whether you gift it to him outright or simply leave it lying around for her accidental leisurely perusing, it’s sure to spark some interest. If you are a particularly adept lover, seduce him through the act of “aural sex”—read these tales to your lover, slowly and sensually. Preferably holding the book with one hand while pleasuring your lover with the other. Or perhaps read aloud to your lovers while they’re bound so tightly they have no way to relieve the sexual tension that you’re building up in them. Maybe you’ll take pleasure in having them read to you while they blush and squirm. If they intersperse the stories with their own bondage confession, you’ve hit the jackpot!
If, on the other hand, you happen to have found this lying around your lover’s home in some conspicuous place, he or she is trying to tell you something.

Many tales will set you on fire. Some may be less to your taste. But each sexy bondage tale shared with your lover is another door opened to his or her erotic mindscape. Knowing how to navigate the dark back alleys of your lover’s mind is an invaluable skill as a deliciously devious lover.
Wishing you pleasures and delights!

Midori
03/12/2012
Contributor: winterseve winterseve
Can I still get this book for review? I forgot this was the last....kept thinking there were non left. One last goodbye. I'll be there!
03/13/2012
Contributor: Sacchi Sacchi
Winterseve, whether you can get the book for review or not, here's Rachel's introduction to make you want it, no matter what.


Introduction:
Tying Men Up: Dominant women storm the pages

I was surprised this year to see that, unlike with previous anthologies in this series, the overwhelming majority of stories submitted to Best Bondage Erotica 2012 involved women tying up and tormenting men. It was a theme I couldn’t ignore, and you will see it heavily represented in these pages. I’ve pondered why exactly that theme showed up at this time, and while I don’t have any firm conclusions, I can say that the range of scenarios you’ll find here showcase a wide range of ingenuity.

What I especially appreciate is that we get to see a variety of dominant women, some exacting a kind of (consensual) revenge, some giving eager men exactly what they deserve, as with the couple in Teresa Noelle Roberts’s “Suffer for Me.” She writes: “I began with his nipple. When I caught it in between my long red finger-nails, he braced himself for a twist, a cruel pinch. I could see in his wide, entreating eyes that he bothfeared and hoped for it. Instead, I caressed first one then the other with
all the delicacy I could muster, applying just enough pressure so it pleasured rather than tickled. Then I took one into my mouth, licking and sucking and teasing the little nub, nipping down enough to vary the kind of pleasure he experienced, but not enough to push it over into real pain.”

This narrator, who we know only as “Ma’am,” is exploring the delight of being in charge, of plotting out what she will do to make Martin “suffer,” and it’s a delicious tale, one of many, of a woman coming into her own erotic power, with a willing, deserving man at her mercy. And even though Terry in Giselle Renarde’s “Dry Rub” is not quite as eager a bondage participant as Martin, it’s clear that while he is not at first in on the plan, he too is getting off, in his own way. That is the beauty, to me, of bondage: when even what seems like a punishment can turn into a delightful, demanding and delicious torment, one you may not know why you like, but your body cannot lie. Instead, it’s Gina’s turn to enjoy the fact that she can have her husband any way she wants him. “She still had a grip on his hair, and his face looked so pitiful in her hands that she almost wanted to laugh. He was desperate, poor boy, and she wouldn’t give in. Tonight he was a tool of her pleasure, nothing more.”

Speaking of ingenuity, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the bold, gutsy, brilliant characters you’ll read about here who are so obsessed with bondage they’ll even tie themselves up to experience that delicious, chilling thrill. In Shoshanna Evers’s opening story “Melting Ice,” Amanda constructs a careful experiment in the art of self-bondage, one she’s been dreaming about for years. “She’d been so ready for this. The entire after- noon had been her foreplay.”

In “Parting Ways,” Tenille Brown shows us that you don’t have to be the binder or the bondee to enjoy the sight of a man squirming and writhing. Anyone who’s been tied up and exulted in the thrilling frustration of it will relate when she writes, “Derek shivered with the need to break free. He bit his bottom lip at the pleasure of being unable to.”

While there is plenty of female domination in these pages, for those who want to read about women who delight in the submissive satisfaction of being trapped by a Dominant’s mind, there’s plenty of that here, too. In Kay Jaybee’s “The Cupboard Under the Stairs,” the not knowing what will happen next is all part of the fun. “A fresh surge of uncertainty zipped through Kristi. She’d thought the blindfold was the change in routine. It seemed she was wrong.” That love/hate relationship many subs feel is captured in Helen Sedgwick’s “Cumaná” when she writes, “I didn’t know if I should be enjoying this, if I should make him stop, but I couldn’t, wouldn’t, the tight pinching on my nipples at once unbearable and intoxicating.” Indeed, “unbearable and intoxicating” could also describe events in all of the stories in this naughty little book.

Bondage comes vividly alive in these twenty-four tales of everything from corsets to cling wrap, from couples dedicated to bondage to those just discovering its pleasures. You’ll find a range of stories from playful to perverse that I hope will give you some new ideas to try out—in your mind and beyond.

Rachel Kramer Bussel New York City
03/14/2012
Contributor: Antipova Antipova
I've been working evenings all week but luckily I have tomorrow off---I wouldn't want to miss this meeting!
03/14/2012
Contributor: tom fay tom fay
not that exciting for me
03/15/2012
Contributor: Sir Sir
Is it alright that I get here a bit late? I get home around 8:30.
03/15/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by Sir
Is it alright that I get here a bit late? I get home around 8:30.
It's being here that counts, so no worries if you're a bit late
03/15/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
As for me, I have a dinner with my parents-in-law, so I'll have to duck out early.
03/15/2012
Contributor: Kynky Kytty Kynky Kytty
I'll be there and my review is up too. Loved the book and the diversity.
03/15/2012
Contributor: removedacnt removedacnt
I'll be here this evening.
03/15/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
I r bad with times

I have to leave like, right when this starts to make it to my in-laws
03/15/2012
Contributor: Antipova Antipova
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
I r bad with times

I have to leave like, right when this starts to make it to my in-laws
D: Aw! We will miss you Sam!
03/15/2012
Contributor: Rayne Millaray Rayne Millaray
Just twenty minutes till we start! And did you hear? Prizes! Are you excited?
03/15/2012
Contributor: Antipova Antipova
Quote:
Originally posted by Rayne Millaray
Just twenty minutes till we start! And did you hear? Prizes! Are you excited?
Yes ma'am!
03/15/2012
Contributor: melovecoffee melovecoffee
Hello All!
03/15/2012
Contributor: Antipova Antipova
I forgot to make a pre-meeting snack. Hmmmm... what takes 0 prep time...?
03/15/2012
Contributor: removedacnt removedacnt
Hello everyone! How are you all tonight?
03/15/2012
Contributor: wrmbreze wrmbreze
Good Evening Everyone!!!!
03/15/2012
Contributor: removedacnt removedacnt
Quote:
Originally posted by Antipova
I forgot to make a pre-meeting snack. Hmmmm... what takes 0 prep time...?
Chips?
03/15/2012
Contributor: wrmbreze wrmbreze
Quote:
Originally posted by Antipova
I forgot to make a pre-meeting snack. Hmmmm... what takes 0 prep time...?
A bag of something.
03/15/2012
Contributor: Kynky Kytty Kynky Kytty
Quote:
Originally posted by Antipova
I forgot to make a pre-meeting snack. Hmmmm... what takes 0 prep time...?
Hmmm snack. Need some too.
03/15/2012
Contributor: Rayne Millaray Rayne Millaray
Quote:
Originally posted by Antipova
I forgot to make a pre-meeting snack. Hmmmm... what takes 0 prep time...?
I'm doing Hummus and carrot sticks. But I cheated. I bought premade snack packs. Lol.
03/15/2012