The Real ProbIem(s) with Bondage Erotica BY ELIZABETH A. ALLEN Bondage Erotica, an anthology edited by Alison Tyler, and the response is a three- fold yuck. Bondage is just so wrong, people tell rne. , ‘ Its misogynistic, they say. It’s fiill of domination and submission, one person controlling another’s desire in the way that the Heinous Patriarchy has controlled women’s desires for centuries. It’s racist. The very terms “master” and “slave” in bd/sm play still have the taint of African-American servitude about them. Its morally slimy. If you tolerate, say, Nazi symbols in bondage play, what’s to stop you from tolerating the evil acts in real life associated with the symbols? We’re on a slippery slope here, people. Then I wonder if those who rail against bondage erotica have actually read any of it. If they bothered to dip into BBE, they’d find the real problems with bondage erotica...’ ' ' l l ' ' S Bondage erotica is repetitive. At its worst, BBE reads like bad porn: four-letter words for body parts, four-letter verbs for sexual acts. I have nothing against raunchy language per se; I just object to the fact that BBE uses all the same raunchy language over and over again. Therefore I love when someone like Helena Settimana comes along with her little gem “Six Persimmons.” With an extended Imention to friends that I’m reviewing Best woman/fruit metaphor, Settimana amplifies “deep velvet sweetness” and the taste -of “golden juice” into rich, suggestive double meaning. She reveals the sexiness of the English tongue. Yum. Bondage erotica is pretty narrow, Open BBE at random, and you’ll probably hit upon a straight, white male topping a straight, white female. People of color exist only in walk-on roles. I saw a few lesbians, but missed the gay men and trans people entirely. For a book about sexual deviation, BBE is sex- uality was white as vanilla and just as bland. Bondage erotica has no personality. Some scenes start as intriguing crucibles for character, like Derek Hill’s “Caged,” where a man has a woman imprisoned like an animal‘ as part of their sex games. I wonder what’s going on in these people’s heads (and pants), but I never find out. This is the closest I get to any sort of emotion or psychology: “Moaning, she clamps her mouth shut, her body twisting with sensation.” Well, duh. Of course there’s sensation. But what kind? Voluptuous swoon- ing? Seizures of indecision? Hill leaves a void in my imagination because he doesn’t think it’s important toimake the people in his stories into characters with interesting and specific subjectivities. Vague characters piss me off, espe- cially in my bondage erotica. I read for the scenarios, yes, but also for the peculiar reac- tions of the people involved. Bondage play — highly stylized, rule-bound and removed from daily existence — tests a character’s personali- «ty on so many levels. The best bondage eroti- ca, like Marilyn Jaye Lewis’ “Safeway,” a short story about two women, phallic produce and exhibitionism, explores these tensions. In “Safeway,” the main character “dreamily” purchases supplies for late-night action with Sheila, her partner, but then calls Sheila a “bitch” when she remembers Sheila’s laugh- ing, manipulative domination the first time they met. Sex seems dangerous to the main character; yet she is completely horny, per- haps because of the thrill of peril. The main character’s conflict makes her not just a set of actions and emissions, but a flesh and fluid l“ ‘"9 '“°“'“ai“$ good way. What’s happening in this sentence? Do l even care? l’m so tied up in the syntax that l have no attention left for the events. How does such schlock get published? That’s because, despite all philo- sophical objections and despite all writerly incompetence, bondage erotica is a huge turn-on. And that’s the biggest problem. This trangressive sort of desire evokes some of the most gut-level revulsion and some of the world’s worst prose, yet it still pins us down, fascinating (some of) us. . So what do we do? Well, let's tak our squeamish attraction to bondage erotica seriously. Season it with a bit of poetry. Throw in some occasional queemess. Give the erotica some plot, a story to keep our attention, with characters as skittish and sexed up as we are. And most of all, let's have a sense of humor about the whole business. At its worst, Best Bondage Erotica reads like bad porn: four-letter words for body parts, four-letter verbs for sexual acts being, not so different from me. Bondage erotica writers can ’t write. I’ll just quote from “Melinda,” by Mitzi Szereto: “Masculine fingers formed dark fans across Melinda’s fleshy rear cheeks as their smoky-eyed owner’s female companion dropped onto her haunches to place the intru- sive object inside the wriggling backside before her.” Ow, that was painful, and not in any Then bondage erotica will not only turn us on, but also make for a ripping good read, all the while serving as an articulate defense for the strange, messy, irresistible pleasures of this form of love-making. V Elizabeth Allen, Middlebury College class of 2000, now reads and writes in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she recently married her partner Kramer talks about her shades for light colored dips and Sharing-a Cripple Creek Life BY MEKEL e first thing to understand about Life on Cripple Creek is that this is not a “disease of the wee ” weepie in print form, although Dean Kramer takes us on a daily journey with Multiple Sclerosis. Each chapter is a gem of lnsight, revealing how the obstacles of life can be dealt with using humor, insight and spiritual awareness. Her ups _and downs are part of the disease, and sometimes she can walk and other times she gives in I0 a wheelchair. As Kramer writes, “While in remission I suffer the delu- s1on that by doing as much as possi- ble today, I can compensate for the day when I am no longer able to do’ much of anything. I buzz, a dement- ed do-bee, driving myself to exhaus- tion. I get the groceries in, the laun- dry done, the clothes folded, the floors vacuumed, the counters wiped down, the dog-yard messes scooped and the toilet bowl cleaned and why? In case I end up in a wheelchair someday.” She takes care of her bees. She goes to music festivals and finds her friends getting empowered by pushing her chair and shouting to people to get out of the way. She goes into a store that promotes itself as “disability-fi‘iendly”.and finds her- self unable to maneuver through the packed aisles. Subsequently Kramer tips the entire bra rack all over.her- self, when her chair accidentally gets hooked, then backs out bringing down the entire sunglass rack. As she hurriedly exits the store Kramer gets into another disastrous situation. - Despite her embarrassment, her story is funny, but she’s angry and pulls at your own heartstrings, making you realize how much we take for grant- ed just to buy a bra! mobility and getting used to not con- trolling how she moves through space. In her words: “I recognize that my probability of falling is greater than average. On any given day, you may find me stumbling and tumbling onto the wood-chipped path to the barn, tripping and flopping into the creek, or overbalancing on my shov- el and subsiding into the garden loam. I’ve grown accustomed to mud and grass stains on my farm clothes and at this point, I’m pretty much able to relax as I fly through the air with the greatest disease.” She also reveals how she has learned to dress depending on what color food she thinks she will spill on her clothes. “One can try to dress for the type of food one antici- pates eating (reds and oranges for tomato-based Italian dishes, pale seafood, browns and taupe shades for curries Chinese cuisine and for drinking iced coffee.” Dean Kramer writes a monthly column for MSWorld, Inc. also called “Life on Cripple Creek,” and has been widely published as an essayist. Kramer’s essays on her relationship to her disease, herself, her women friends, her farm, and to God all make a great read. She has taken to heart the spiritual lessons that can result from coping with a disease. Her book leaves you feeling lighter, having shared a good laugh with her and deepened your own insight and awareness of life. Highly recommended for all. 7 Mekel lives and writes in Winooski.