Election 2012 Endorsements: A Closer Look at Hidden Ballot Bombs

I’ve not exactly been quite this political season. But most of my Tweets, Facebook and Google Plus posts have been about the presidential election and the travesty of religious extremist who have hijacked the Republican party and are attempting to drag women, LGBT folk, and persons of color back into the eighteenth century while eliminating the middle class and returning to the nobility/peasants stratification.

But, in many states, there are additional candidates who require support. And, in Oregon and Portland there are a a number of other issues critical to progressive values on the ballot — too many of which have had the facts of the harm they will cause obfuscated in campaign rhetoric.

So here, I will share how and why I’m voting. I’ve done the research and I explain my positions so if you don’t want to take the time, feel free to use what’s below to mark your ballot. Just remember to drop it off at your local library or other official drop box by Nov. 6.

National Election

What Kind of World do You Want to Live In?

I have never been a big Barack Obama fan. He makes purty speeches and maybe in eight years he would have been ready to tackle everything the presidency requires. If he’d been a little less naive, a little more seasoned, he might have wrangled a party majority in Congress to pass significant health care reform, get rid of laws that violate the constitution, reinstate the financial regulations that would have prevented the Wall Street-engineered meltdown, and ended the horrific wars the Shrub dragged us into.

But, Obama has gotten us out of Iraq, improved U.S. relations with the rest of the world, ended DADT, stopped defending DOMA, and enacted some health care reform including making contraceptives more accessible. Under Obama, the economic crash had a softer landing that it would have without his stimulus package and more people are working. His accomplishments are more impressive when you take into account he had to fight Republican determination to see him fail at every turn.

Whatever you think of the man now in the White House, he beats the alternative and only a vote for him can keep Mittens from giving more of the country away to the rich and powerful he belongs to.

The same philosophy applies to Congressional races. Right wing extremists, in the pocket of the Koch brothers and other corporatacracies, are trying to turn Social Security benefits over to the Wall Street swindlers, eliminate Medicare and all access to contraception, take our education system back to the dark ages, etc. Their ultimate goal is to deprive anyone except rich white straight males of their civil rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Even if you’ve never had to choose between food and medicine, wondered how you would get to work without money for gas or bus fare because your child needed to see a doctor, or watched a love one die because of corporate neglect, try to discover within you the empathy entirely missing in the GOP rhetoric and candidates.

If you get weekends off or a paid vacation or have a retirement fund or paid sick leave, remember the union members who bought those benefits for you with their blood. The Koch brothers are leading a movement to take all that away and return to the concept of company-owned employees forced to work six days a week for a pittance with no benefits and no regard for providing a safe workplace, clean drinking water, breathable air.

If you want to see a viable third party, the time to do so is during interim elections. Progressive candidates who don’t want to affiliate with the Demicans, need to start in local races building up experience and clout.

Unless you’ve fallen for the right-wing extremist BS rhetoric, if you don’t want to see women forced back to the days of barefoot, pregnant, and dead in childbirth by the time they’re thirty, vote for the Democratic candidate for Senator and Representative to Congress and your state legislature.

Oregon State Offices

Secretary of State: Kate Brown has made some mistakes. She’s been arrogant and some of her decisions have been questionable. But, overall she did a good job for her constituents when she was a state legislator and has made state level accountability improvements as Secretary of State.

Much of her opposition is coming from a man who is angry that he was fined for violating state laws prohibiting paying signature gatherers by the signature. He’s telling people to vote for anyone but the incumbent.

But, her Republican opponent spouts the GOP line about voter fraud. So far, the only documented voter fraud has been perpetuated by Republicans and all efforts that have claimed to combat the proven Republican fraud has been aimed at disenfranchising people of color, poor folk, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and students — those more likely to vote Democratic. That alone is enough to keep me from voting for him.

State Treasurer: The state’s chief financial officer manages investment of state money, the sale of state bonds and helps oversee management of state lands. Ted Wheeler has done a good job protecting the state’s money through profitable investments. He also discredited claims that the $3.5 billion Columbia River Crossing boondoggle would be funded by tolls and federal money.

His opponent has worked for companies that contributed to the economic mess GOP deregulation put us in, has never held a public office, and spews the GOP line about the need to decimate public employee benefits so we can give more tax breaks to the wealthy. Enough said.

Oregon’s first woman State Attorney General, Ellen Rosenblum, is a former appellate court judge, former state court judge, and was a federal prosecutor. She’s endorsed by labor, conservationists, LGBTQ advocates, pro choice supporters, and builders. That last one may seem incongruous, but it speaks to her fairness.

Her opponent has only been in private practice and has never held a public office. He supports the GOP line about out-of-control government spending (that never seems to mention how much the GOP-started wars and GOP-passed tax breaks and corporate welfare for their wealthy donors have contributed to deficits).

State Labor Commissioner: Organized labor (the folks who brought you the 40-hour work week, health and safety regulations to protect workers from injury, paid holidays, weekends off, etc. for which they’re vilified by the right wing as the evil that is destroying business) is supporting Brad Avakian and businesses don’t consider him to be the Big Bad. Among other accomplishments, he’s gotten more than $15 million returned to workers who were cheated out of their wages by their employers.

His opponent toes the GOP line that “Red tape, high taxes and lawsuits are killing good paying family wage jobs.” The reality is that unregulated businesses that refuse to pay “family-wages” leave consumers unable to make purchases, which kills jobs.

Oregon Supreme Court: Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Richard Baldwin, an 11-year court veteran, has demonstrated his commitment to helping those with less access to the legal system.

His opponent has mostly worked as a lawyer in private practice and only served as a volunteer substitute judge. She has seriously exaggerated how much bench experience she has and I’m not willing to vote for someone who lies to serve as a judge.

Oregon Court of Appeals, Pos. 6: James Egan sits on the Linn County Circuit Court. Previously, as an attorney, he represented people who had been injured on their jobs. He also served as a Judge Advocate General in the military.

His opponent is a trial lawyer with no experience on the bench, although his supporters make much of the fact that he successfully argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. What isn’t mentioned on his website or in most of those endorsements is that the Supreme Court case supported random drug testing. That alone is enough to cost him my vote.

State Measures

Political spin often phrases issues to make them appear the exact opposite of their real impact. I remember one election where I condemned a measure in a letter to the newspaper (you know back in the old days before weblogs) and someone asked me how it could have a downside. He had only read the paid endorsements in the Oregon Voter’s pamphlet (please note, there’s nothing “impartial” about the document–I rarely open mine). The significant downside had been completely hidden in the campaign rhetoric so I had to dig it out, but it was there.

There are a number of measures on the ballot this year that promise the opposite of what they will deliver, kind of like GOP candidates. Some are particularly egregious because, like the Republicans, they appeal to core needs — jobs, education, environment — while only lining the pockets of the wealthy.

Vote YES on Measure 77 Disaster Emergency Powers: Some measures just make you shake your head as to why they’re needed or why no one passed them before. Measure 77 grants the governor temporary (30-day) authority to call the legislature into emergency session and direct response and spending in the case of catastrophic disasters.

Vote YES on Measure 78 which makes spelling and grammatical changes in the state constitution.

Vote NO on Measure 79 – Real Estate Transfer Tax Ban: The National Association of Realtors is trying to scare voters into adding a ban on real estate transfer taxes to the state constitution even though that’s been illegal under state law since 1989. (Washington County’s tax was grandfathered in under that law and won’t be affected by Measure 79.)

Realtors have wasted more than $5 million in a misleading campaign to protect their own (and no one else’s) interests.

Vote YES on Measure 80 – Legalizes Marijuana: For decades, billions of dollars have been flushed down the toilet trying to prevent Americans from consuming marijuana. Thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens are thrown into prisons — fed, clothed, and housed by taxpayers. Meanwhile, it’s easier for minors to purchase pot than beer.

This measure would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana sales in Oregon. When we persecute, prosecute, and incarcerate those who use a drug that’s less harmful than legal ones such as nicotine and alcohol, everyone loses, especially taxpayers.

Vote: NO on Measure 81 – Bans Gillnetting: Sports fishermen are casting this as a law to prevent cruel fish captures. But, this measure would not change the number of salmon caught. It would only allow sports fishermen — who spend money fishing for fun — to catch even more salmon at the expense of commercial and Trbal fisherman for whom fishing is their livelihood. (Sports fishermen already remove more fish from the rivers than the commercial fisherman combined, but the greedy asshats want more. As one newspaper asked: “Is it too much to call this whole proposal fishy?”

Vote NO Measure 82 (Authorizes private casinos) and Measure 83 (Authorizes Multnomah County casino): Slick advertising gushes BS about The Grange’s (a name stolen from an organization that has supported farm families since 1867) “family-friendly” casino, jobs, and contributions to the state coffers.

This amendment is wrong in so many ways, it’s hard to remember them all. First, it would break yet another white man’s government promise to Tribal authorities and deal a devastating blow to Oregon’s tribal casino profits which are their only hope for lifting their members out of the dire poverty in which many of them have been kept for generations.

Second, enshrining benefits to a single, foreign (Canadian), shady (their other endeavors have all come under legal scrutiny for questionably practices) in the state constitution is an egregious mistake.

Third, the Canadians would take money that now goes into the pockets of Tribes, local businesses, and schools out of the country.

Fourth, many of the “jobs” would be minimum-wage, no benefit, night and weekend (how’s that good for “families”?) shit work that would be created at the expense of existing jobs and businesses.

Those slick advertisements for the privately owned Wood Village casino (which won’t be called The Grange after the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry took them to court for stealing its name) make much about a portion of its revenue will be paid to the state.

But those advertisements neglect to factor in the reduced revenue from lottery and video poker which pay more that triple the percentage that the Canadians would pay. The Oregon Lottery generates more than $500 million for the state through video gambling machines. Bar  owners now (and would continue to) pay 75 percent of their video poker money to the state while the Wood Village monstrosity would only pay a quarter of its profits in taxes. Even in other states where it has established gambling entities, the Canadian company pays from 55 to 85 percent.

Supporting this measure gives a Canadian company a virtual monopoly over gambling in the Portland area and allows it to steal more than $300 million dollars from the state of Oregon every year.

Vote NO Measure 84 Eliminates inheritance tax: Once again proponents are lying to try to get you to vote for another way for the rich to get richer at the expense of the rest of us. They claim this measure would be a boon to small farms, but all farms worth less than $7.5 million already are exempt from inheritance tax. And anyone else with an estate valued at less than $1 million doesn’t pay estate taxes either.

Worse, the proponents always seem to forget to mention that this measure would allow family members to give unlimited assets such as stocks, bonds or businesses to other family members tax-free. So rather than pay taxes on the gain of something that’s appreciated significantly in value, the rich get to transfer it to Uncle Bob, who only has to declare the gain from when it was gifted to when he sold it. He then gifts it back.

The only people who would benefit from this are the 1 percent. And we can’t afford to gift the 1 percent with anymore tax breaks. This measure is supported by Kevin Mannix, who broke the law to finance its campaign, which is really enough to say vote no in and of itself.

Vote YES Measure 85 Repeals the Corporate “Kicker”: The kicker check, a unique, bizarre Oregon tax construct, is triggered when the state’s revenue surplus is 2 percent more than predicted. Divided between individual and corporate taxpayers it’s fiscally irresponsible, especially when our bridges are falling down, are schools are underfunded, and we already have one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the country.

As fiscally irresponsible as the kicker policy is, Oregonians have seemed reluctant to relinquish it. But giving it to corporations, most of which have their headquarters (and take their profits) out of state, while public schools increase class sizes and shorten school years is just stupid.

This measure won’t fix the madness that is the kicker or a legislature underfunding public education (that requires voting to throw out all Republicans in the state legislature), but it’s a start.

City of Portland/Multnomah County

Mayor: Write In Scott Fernandez : Although early in the primary campaign I threw my support in the Portland Mayor’s race behind one of the two eventual winners, as November approached I’ve found myself having second thoughts. During the primaries, he seemed the best choice to stop big business from buying the Mayor’s office and to stand up against the CRC boondoggle. But watching him fumble revelations dug up from his past, especially given that he could have brought them up earlier himself and diffused their impact, I had to wonder whether he’s ready to be Portland’s mayor.

Unfortunately, his principal opponent is a horrible alternative. He’s owned by developers who enjoy building huge apartment complexes with no parking and no regard for the impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. He’s been a strong backer of the developer boondoggle, aka the Columbia River Crossing, that will cost the taxpayers billions.

As stated above, I don’t usually advocate supporting third parties and/or write-in candidates. But, Scott Fernandez is a scientist, not a politician. He prioritizes clean water, will fight to keep coal trains from polluting the city with their dust, and supports a no-kill animal shelter. He’s not accepted big business contributions.

City Council, Position No. 1: Supporting Amanda Fritz in the primary was probably the last decision I made for that ballot. She’s made mistakes and enemies. But, she cares and shows it with every thoughtful decision. She guards every penny in the city’s pocketbook as if it were her own. She’s probably the only truly independent voice on the city council, and continually stands ready and willing to challenge the status quo.

Her opponent has run a, expensive vicious campaign that’s quick to find fault with Fritz, but rarely mentions why her opponent would do a better job.

One of Portland’s biggest problems is a rogue police force that shoots first and doesn’t ever want to hear answers to the questions invariably asked later. Most of their victims are mentally ill and Fritz’s background as a psychiatric nurse puts her in an excellent position to challenge the status quo of blood on the streets.

Her opponent is backed by the police union, she supports their desire to remain above the law, and she would have returned Aaron Campbell’s killer to the streets.

Vote: YES Measure 26-143 – Creates a Multnomah County Library Tax District: Multnomah County Library is second only to New York City in per capita usage, circulating twice as many materials per resident as the average library. It’s a critical component of Portland’s literary reputation and the city’s livability. And it’s closed on Mondays because it’s underfunded.

Bizarre accounting systems put in place by tax cutting measures have stripped city and counties of their ability to deliver needed services to their citizens. As a result, even when we pass a levy to support it, as property values drop many people don’t pay that levy. (Look at your tax bill which arrived within a day or two of your ballot to see if you’re contributing.)

A library district would give the marvelous Multnomah County Library it’s own tax revenues so it no longer would be at the mercy of county needs. The cost would be minimal, $33 for a home with an assessed value of $100,000. If you’re an average user, that’s $1 for each item checked out during the year.

The measure would restore library hours and children’s programs and remove the necessity and expense of campaigning for a funding levy every few years.

Vote: YES Measure 26-145 – Reforms the Portland Fire and Police Disability and Retirement Fund: A loophole allows police and firefighters to bump up their lifetime annual pension payments by retiring in a year that includes an extra pay period, inflating the number used to calculate their retirement benefits. This measure will save taxpayers $46.6 million over 25 years.

Vote: NO Measure 26-146 – City of Portland Arts Tax: Can we spell deceit children? This is being sold as a way to restore arts education in schools. But, more than half of the funds collected for this regressive tax will go to already well-endowed nonprofit arts organizations such as the Oregon Symphony, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Portland Art Museum, etc.

Every resident with earned income (which eliminates wealthy tax avoiders who live off their stock and bond funds) must pay$35 a year evene if they’re eligible for food stamps or other benefits.

And, the worst potential impact of this measure is that it will hurt smaller schools. The measure guarantees one art or music teacher for every 500 public school students between kindergarten and fifth grade within city limits. Most city schools have fewer than 500 students so they will be forced by this measure to fork over enough to pay the difference, possibly at the expense of math and science programs.

I’m all for arts. I believe we should have arts education in schools, but we also need math, sicent, and reading. And as much as I think it’s important to have a symphony and ballet and art museum, these are organizations with wealthy backers, pricy fundraisers, tax breaks, and tickets the taxpayers hurt most by this measure won’t ever be able to afford.

Vote: YES Measure 26-144 – Portland Public Schools Bond: Portland Public School District is one of few in Oregon without bonds to build and repair school buildings. As a result, the district’s buildings are in bad shape.

This measure would fix the schools with greatest need first while trying to minimize the impact on taxpayers ($1.10 per $1,000 of assessed value for the first eight years when most of the money will be raised/spent).

Judging a Book by its Cover

This post originally appeared June 12, 2012  on K.D. Grace’s blog, “A Hopeful Romantic”.

People do judge a book by its cover. Case in point: my third novel, Dommemoir. The original publisher approached me and offered promotional/marketing support to get me to sign with them.

WARNING: This book will change women’s perspective on relationship dynamics forever.

They sponsored a launch party that featured a cake topped with a marzipan male genitalia wearing a ball spreader. I wrote guest blog posts. I gave workshops. I appeared on radio shows. I held a second launch party hosted by a Body Piercing & Tattoo establishment whose owner had been a resource for scenes in the book. The book received excellent reviews and was a Night Owl Romance Top Pick.

Sales were disappointing.

After two years, I got the rights back to the book and re-released it. I did none of those things. No party. No guest blog posts. No radio shows. I mentioned the book on Twitter, Face book, and G+.

My launch day sales exceeded those the publisher reported for the entire first quarter when it was originally released and they’ve steadily increased since then. As of mid May, my sales exceeded those of the publisher for the entire time they had the rights to the book.

The only thing I changed (except for correcting some minor typos) was the interior and cover design. And, while the former might make for a better reading experience, the latter is what dramatically increased my book sales.

The original cover looked okay in print, but it did nothing to sell the book. The thumbnail was a black blob. I never liked it, but I’d already gotten the publisher to ditch an even worse cover design and knew I’d never get this one changed.

One of the advantages of Indie publishing is having complete control over how your book looks. But, that also means you own responsibility for every facet of your book’s appearance. I’m fortunate in that I have skills as a typesetter and book designer. The interior design of the first edition of Dommemoir was just plain boring and I could fix that.

I’ve had some graphic design experience, and I’m comfortable creating simple covers for short stories. But, I’m not a designer or an artist. As I mentioned on this blog at the beginning of the year, I already had Nyla Alisia at Pussy Cat Press, who is both, redesign the covers for the second editions of Broken and Shattered. (Sales for both have also increased dramatically with the new covers. They are not romances so they have a smaller audience. But, they still outsold their original, three-year publisher release at the end of May after less than seven months with new covers. Some of those sales could be attributed to the lack of e-books when the books were originally released. But they’re selling in paper as well.)

As a result, when Nyla asked me to trust her and give her free reign to design the new cover for Dommemoir, I agreed. Although normally she only reads a synopsis and a few chapters before working on a cover design, apparently she wasn’t able to put Dommemoir down and ended up reading the entire book. (And, after she finished it, Nyla decided she would like to be a FemDom and wrote a tagline warning readers: “This book will change women’s perspective on relationship dynamics forever.”)

She took the elements that touched her, that made the story powerful, and combined them in a unique cover that captures the emotional content of the book. I know if she had tried to explain the cover to me or showed me a sketch to convey the idea, I probably would have vetoed it. But, the minute I saw what she created, I fell in love and only requested some very minor adjustments.

In one image she managed to cover every critical element of the book, without giving away too much. It is absolutely perfect! And, the sales numbers prove that a good cover really can make or break a book.

Recently, I taught a class on self publishing at a local college. When I spoke about cover design, I started with a bag full of books that I believe have great covers. One by one, I pulled each book out of the bag, held it up for a few seconds, and put it back. Then, I asked my students to tell me what genre that book was marketed in. (Genre being a way to categorize the emotional response expected from a reader.) Even with only a few seconds to view each cover, at least one student accurately stated the genre of each book.

And, then, I went on to explain why that was important.

You have to write a good book. You have to put it in front of the right audience with a blurb that entices them to read a sample. But, if you don’t have an eye catching cover that captures the emotional tone of the book at first glance, you’ll never get readers to click on your cover instead of one of the dozens of others vying for their attention.

Avoiding Abuse in the Search for D/s

This post originally appeared April 30, 2012 on BDSM Book Reviews.

Sometimes, only a thin line separates BDSM from abuse in a relationship. Especially online, you find people who claim that their “naturally dominant” personalities entitle them to demand submission of others: to take ownership of mind, body and soul. The only thing creepier than Dominants who profess their superiority are the submissives who offer themselves up for this sort of abuse.

True, many submissives simply echo the erotic fantasies that haunt them, reciting the words they’ve seen others type. Most shun real-time opportunities. Although a few may go so far as to present themselves for service, reality and pain soon send them back to the comfort of their online world. But some actually put themselves in the hands of the those who have no education, little experience, and less understanding of the responsibilities that come with accepting someone’s submission.

I especially worry about the submissives who have low (or no) self-esteem, who think enslavement will solve their vanilla-world problems, who make decisions based on the reaction between their legs instead of the one between their ears. They get damaged — emotionally, physically, and financially.

“I am dominant by nature and like to be in control,” more than one profile claims. They makes no reference to experience, knowledge or caring for a submissive. “I am a True Master seeking a true sub/slave to serve Me,” another common declaration. Exactly what does that mean?

BDSM organizations have defined abuse as: “Physical, sexual or emotional acts inflicted on a person without their informed and freely given consent.”

But without training and experience, without care and consideration, abuse can happen even with consent. Someone who consents to a D/s relationship without prior knowledge of what it involves or the person to whom he/she is submitting is a perfect candidate for emotional abuse. This statement, in a “slave’s” online journal, speaks volumes about what the person writing it has experienced in the past. “i need some security and to feel good that i am not going to be thrown away for a simple reason.”

That boi consented to a D/s relationship. He offered himself as a slave to someone who professed experience and presented a “leather resume” that was, for the most part fabricated. What he didn’t get from the Dominant to whom he gave himself was references from others who had served him. The emotional abuse that ensued took its toll, and it required the better part of a year for the boi to heal from a month-long enslavement.

To work, a Dominant/submissive relationship must offer symbiotic benefits to everyone involved. Even a slave should ask: “What’s in it for me?” Dominants who do not ensure that their submissives’ needs get met, as well as their own, do not deserve the title of Master/Mistress. Those who abuse their submissives — who don’t respect and treasure them as human beings — give all a bad name.

Friendship, love, intimacy, respect, and trust form the core of all relationships. Without any one of those, the connection between two (or more) people will not last. The strongest D/s relationships I know are the ones that started out as two people in love. Often the D/s aspect grew organically out of their love affair/marriage. Their unions have endured for decades. However, those who seek Owners or slaves without developing deeper relationships, most likely will not survive together a year.

One can meet one’s soul mate online. I know a number of couples/families who have done so, including those who started out geographically very far apart. And it helps if you share common interests in S&M and D/s, so seeking that soul mate on a site for alternative lifestyles offers advantages. But, look beyond the labels at the person. Get to know the man or woman on many levels before venturing into a Master/slave contract. D/s demands incredible trust. You cannot achieve trust without scrupulous honesty and that requires a lot of  communication.

The best way to avoid abuse is to take precautions from the moment you meet a potential new partner. I highly recommend Jack Rinella’s book Partners in Power. Not only does he address safety, but he also talks about types of real-world relationships and what it takes to find the right partner and actually make a D/s relationships work.

If you got involved in a relationship without taking precautions, if you allowed fantasies and desire to overrule common sense, it’s critical that you be honest with yourself now. Anyone who suspects they (or someone they care about) has suffered from abuse, needs to ask these questions (developed at Leather Leadership Conference in 1999):

“1. Are your needs and limits respected?

“2. Is your relationship built on honesty, trust, and respect?

“3. Are you able to express feelings of guilt or jealousy or unhappiness?

“4. Can you function in everyday life?

“5. Can you refuse to do illegal activities?

“6. Can you insist on safe sex practices?

“7. Can you choose to interact freely with others outside of your relationship?

“8. Can you leave the situation without fearing that you will be harmed, or fearing the other participant(s) will harm themselves?

“9. Can you choose to exercise self-determination with money, employment, and life decisions?

“10. Do you feel free to discuss your practices and feelings with anyone you choose?”

If any of those questions generates a “No” answer, the relationship is potentially abusive. You can find help by contacting the National Leather Association -International Domestic Violence Project at http://www.nlaidvproject.us, your local domestic violence hotline, or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or http://www.ndvh.org/

Stay safe.

PayPal Back Pedals: Excuse Me if I Don’t Celebrate

This post originally appeared March 13, 2012 on 4-Letter Words.

I never liked PayPal. The idea of an unregulated corporation having access to all my personal, financial information made me nervous. But when a number of publishers and retailers give you no choice about getting paid except via PayPal, you sign up.

Whenever I had an alternative, I used it. I opened a bank account where I can deposit cheques in pounds sterling and I have an account that allows me to accept checks made out to my pen name.

I still ended up with seven PayPal accounts for various enterprises I manage, including one for I.G. Frederick and one for Pussy Cat Press.

I first learned trouble was brewing for erotica authors and publishers back in August when Essemoh Teepee reported to the Erotica Authors Association (EAA) list that: “The Religious Right owners of the PayPal service have just decided that I am a pornographer and the spawn of Hell. They have shut down my business account so I cannot sell my stories or audios using their service from my website.” In a followup email, he added: “it appears they have what they call a ‘Protector of the Brand’, somewhat like the Mediaeval ‘Defender of the Faith’ perhaps? If they take a look at what you do and they don’t like it, they freeze your account and all your money for 180 days before kicking you out. There is no appeal once they have put you to the sword.”

Other authors immediately reported they had suffered similar experiences. I noticed that most of the authors who had had their PayPal accounts shut down always seemed to have had large sums of money in their accounts when this happened, money which PayPal confiscated. One author I met at the EAA conference in Las Vegas later tweeted that everything he had was in his PayPal account when it was shut down and he didn’t even have money to pay his rent.

Of course, authors expressed outrage that PayPal could do this and urged those who had their money stolen to file lawsuits. But, when I researched the PayPal Terms of Service (which you must agree to before you sign up) I found:

“You may not use the PayPal service for activities that … relate to transactions involving … certain sexually oriented materials or services …”

AND, in a completely separate document:

“If PayPal, in its sole discretion, believes that you may have engaged in any Restricted Activities … We may close, suspend, or limit your access to your Account or the PayPal Services (such as limiting … your ability to send money, make withdrawals …”

AND:

“If you violate the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, then in addition to the above actions you will be liable to PayPal for the amount of PayPal’s damages caused by your violation of the Acceptable Use Policy. You acknowledge and agree that $2,500.00 USD per violation of the Acceptable Use Policy is presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages … PayPal may deduct such damages directly from any existing Balance in the offending Account, or any other Account you control.”

I’m not a lawyer, but if you put those paragraphs (from different documents and different sections of documents) together it’s obvious that PayPal has given itself the ability to legally steal confiscate people’s money for arbitrary reasons. They’ve also made it extremely unlikely that anyone would discover that they could do so until it was too late. After all, how many people thoroughly read the very long, often difficult to comprehend TOS, EULA, privacy policies, etc. that they accept with a click of their mouse every time they sign up for a new website?

Personally, I took what precautions I could (and I warned anyone who would listen). I made a point of immediately transferring any funds I received into my bank account rather than leave them there for possible future purposes and again I went out of my way to avoid using PayPal. Sometimes, as with Smashwords, that meant waiting until my royalties built up to a certain point. (Of course, that option is only available to U.S. authors/publishers with U.S. addresses and tax ID numbers. And, currently, unless you’ve published 100 books, Smashwords is the only option for getting your books listed for sale on Ebook Eros.)

When all this first came to my attention, I was considering setting up a shopping cart for my website since I’m now self publishing much of my work. I asked my submissive and webmaster, Patrick, to research alternatives to PayPal. He learned that every other merchant services option either had similar Terms of Service regarding the sale of “adult” material or they charged ridiculous amounts of money for the privilege of using their service to collect funds. I gave up on that idea and continued to sell books and short stories via various retailers, giving up 30 percent or more of what readers paid.

I didn’t really notice what happened with Bookstrand. I was incredibly busy at that time. I didn’t have books for sale there, and I didn’t even realize they had provided an opportunity for indie authors to sell their work.

But, on Feb. 20, I received an e-mail, sent to all publishers, from the Chief Operations Officer of All Romance. The e-mail purported to be about AR’s decision to separate Erotica from Erotic Romance. Now, I back that decision. I think it’s important to label our work so readers don’t accidentally purchase material they find offensive.

As much as I believe I should have the right to write and sell anything that anyone else will buy, I also strongly respect the right of any reader to draw a line that they don’t wish to cross in their reading experience. What I will not accept is any person moving that line for anyone else. No one should be permitted to force someone to read what they find offensive, but they shouldn’t be able to prevent anyone else from reading that same material just because they don’t like it.

The AR e-mail also stated: “Please review section 7 of the publisher contract” with a warning that: “If the amended terms are ones you can’t abide by … [we] will accept your notice of termination. …We request that you take immediate initiative to remove any titles that may be in breach.”

After reading section 7, I wrote an e-mail asking:

“I have a question about the amended terms. They state ‘Erotic Works which contain … scenes of non-consensual bondage or non-consensual sado-masochistic practices’ are ‘restricted.’

“My question is does this include questionable consent or consensual non-consent?

“I also would like to know why are you working to eliminate thought-provoking fiction which is not illegal?”

The response I got did not mention PayPal and instead discussed the vision for AR versus the type of stories independent authors and publishers were selling on their site.

However, I was told that I must “inactivate” both Broken and Shattered because they contain “questionable consent.” (I wrote about this in detail as part of Eden Connor’s excellent series by banned authors.)

Four days after the initial e-mail from AR, I received the now infamous letter from Mark Coker of Smashwords.

Ironically, when the first discussion about PayPal erupted on the EAA list last summer, one contributor noted that he had brought his concerns about PayPal to Coker’s attention and was assured: “They’re committed to protecting the rights of erotic authors (within legal bounds of course) and they use PayPal and haven’t had any trouble.”

After receiving the February Smashwords letter, I spent several hours changing keyword tags for my stories, which will reduce my sales since the people looking for transgessive stories won’t be able to find them. I also removed some promotional material that hadn’t been accepted for the premium catalog rather than provide an excuse to boot me and my stories.

Mark Coker put the blame for PayPal’s decisions on the credit card companies. He based that on e-mail from PayPal stating: “Our banking partners and credit card associations have taken a very strict stance on this subject matter.” However, an author reported to the EAA list that reliable sources inside Visa and MasterCard denied any culpability.

In letters responding to inquiries from Banned Writers, Visa and MasterCard have very publicly denied that they had any involvement in PayPal’s decision not to accept transactions for legal fiction.

In a response to what it dismissed as “chatter,” PayPal’s director of communications posted a statement full of misrepresentations, allusions, and lies. In it, he made no mention of credit cards or financial partners. (Alessia Brio does an excellent job of ripping PayPal’s ludicrous statement to shreds.)

Because of the uproar, I suspect many didn’t have time to read the “Amendment to the PayPal User Agreement” effective April 01, 2012 which account holders were notified about during this time.

“You authorize PayPal, directly or through third parties, to make any inquiries we consider necessary to validate your identity. This may include asking you for further information, requiring you to provide your date of birth, a taxpayer identification number and other information that will allow us to reasonably identify you, requiring you to take steps to confirm ownership of your email address or financial instruments, ordering a credit report, or verifying your Information against third party databases or through other sources. We may also ask to see your driver’s license or other identifying documents at any time. If you use certain PayPal Services federal law requires that PayPal verify some of your Information. PayPal reserves the right to close, suspend, or limit access to your Account and/or the PayPal Services in the event we are unable to obtain or verify this Information.”

PayPal also amended their “privacy” policies (but you would have to read the entire policy to see what’s changed). Orwell was wrong. The government isn’t Big Brother, the corporations are.

When I started publicly ranting about PayPal’s latest bullying, I was chastised on Twitter by a friend, Mick Luvbight, for coming ” late to the party.” He reminded me that “PayPal has been denying its service to us pornographers for 10 years.”

Countless authors have lost hundreds of dollars in sales because of an arbitrary decision by a corporate bully. At least one publisher reportedly will close its doors at the end of the month. (Although there’s no mention of this on its website, at least two of its authors have blogged about its demise.)

Numerous authors have blogged about the outrageous bullying and the impact it will have on reader choice. Many of us have joined Banned Writers, a coalition of writers, readers, publishers, and editors fighting against economic censorship of erotic fiction started by Remittance Girl.

In addition to hosting a compelling series of interviews with and essays by banned authors on her blog, Eden Connor has also put out a call for transgressive erotica. Erotic Tales of Transgression will collect, in defiance of corporate morality police, stories that examine the gritty truth of human sexuality.

Significantly, the rest of the Internet didn’t dismiss this issue as a problem only for “smut” writers. Although they condescendingly deny that they would ever write or read this type of fiction, many recognize the slippery slope. The issue has been covered in the mainstream press and by tech bloggers. Forbes wrote “Credit Card Companies Should Process Payments Not Censor Content.”

Organizations such as ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation have set up petitions telling PayPal not to ”censor” books.

However, I don’t believe petitions will do the job. Although we’ve all been ranting about censorship, in reality PayPal is not preventing books from being written. If what PayPal is doing is illegal, it would come under restraint of trade. (And, given our current government interest in allowing corporations unfettered permission to abuse consumers, I’m not expecting to see any action taken.)

Instead, I urge anyone concerned about this corporate bullying to close their PayPal and eBay accounts. (I’ve closed all seven of mine and stated why in the comments.) Let merchants who only accept PayPal know why you will no longer shop with them. Money talks.

And, apparently PayPal listened. On March 12, in an update on Smashwords, Mark Coker stated: “I met with PayPal this afternoon at their office in San Jose. They will soon announce revised content policies that I expect will please the Smashwords community. Effective immediately, we are returning our Terms of Service to back to its pre-February 24 state.”

On March 13, to great cheering across the Interwebs, PayPal announced a clarification of “exactly how we are going to implement the policy,” stating ”First and foremost, we are going to focus this policy only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text.”

When was the last time you read an erotica e-book that contained images other than the cover and the author’s photo?

Excuse me if I don’t celebrate. PayPal is backpedalling because it got caught trying to prevent the sale of legal fiction. Many authors have lost days protesting this, days they could have spent writing fiction. My e-books are no longer visible on All Romance ebooks unless you log in. I learned Monday that another publisher has stopped selling independent e-books, allegedly because of a logistics issue, but I have to wonder.

Just as this incident didn’t begin in February, it won’t end in March unless we’re vigilant about protecting our rights to buy and sell what we choose to read and write. What we need more than anything else right now is an alternative to PayPal.

UPDATE: On March 20, Selena Kitt made it clear in her post Corporate Bullies that PayPal has in fact NOT changed anything and is still censoring legal erotica. Read her post, then close your PayPal account.

Dirty Mind vs. Debit Card: My Anger Inspired Me

This post originally appeared March 8 on Eden Connor’s “Dirty Mind vs. Debit Card:” series.

Many years ago I corresponded at length with a young man who was seeking an owner. Although we decided we weren’t suitable for each other, we grew quite close during the exchange of numerous e-mails and telephone calls.

The young man, who had multiple mental diagnoses, had been introduced to BDSM several years earlier by his therapist. She enslaved him and kept him in what’s known as a 24/7 TPE (Total Power Exchange) relationship. She whipped him, used him sexually, and kept him a prisoner in her house. Although he believes he consented to this relationship, under such circumstances he would have been unable to give informed, legitimate consent.

To compound the woman’s abhorrent, unethical relationship with this boy, she abandoned him after two years, releasing him to flounder on his own in the vanilla world.

I have kept a slave in a consensual Total Power Exchange relationship in the past. Someone in this type of relationship can’t make the leap to individual independence without some transitional time and assistance. The young man was given neither. And, this is a young man who already had difficulty functioning in the world at large because of the severe problems that had sent him to seek therapy in the first place.

I was horrified. But, as much as I tried, I couldn’t convince the young man that this woman had abused him.

My anger inspired me to write a novel. Unlike real life, readers require that fiction make sense. I tried to imagine how anyone could perpetuate such horrific torture on another human being. In a desperate attempt not to write a one-dimensional villain, I ended up with an additional novel.

Although I originally tried to market them as one book, in reality they needed to be two. At the suggestion of the books’ original publisher, I split them. Originally, the combined book was called Broken. Searching for a title for the second book, my TPE slave, who was in service to me at the time, suggested Shattered.

And, so the protagonist in Broken is the antagonist in Shattered. Both books are works of fiction. However, I know first hand that what Zachary suffers in Shattered is all too close to the truth. My beta reader was a friend who had studied for his doctorate in psychology. He had first hand experience of the environment I had chosen to explain how Jessica could abuse Zachary to the extent that she did. I found it disconcerting that he thought Broken very believable, given his own experience.

These novels are not romances. They’re cautionary tales about abuse and the meaning of consent. (In Broken Jessica consents to enslavement by her professor when he threatens to expel her from the university and blacklist her.) I know some readers find them arousing. Others have found them revolting. But, my intention was that readers find them thought provoking and that has indeed been the case.

One reader of both books wrote: “The longer the books gestate in my mind, they give me some things to think about in my own life, as well as stirring me physically.

“I.G. touches upon darkness that many of us hold within ourselves and the inner core that can be broken and rebuilt. She brought out the things that we will do and go through in order to achieve our life goals.”

One reviewer, Brenda Thatcher, Co-Owner of Mystique Books,  wrote of Shattered: “If art is meant to disturb, to reach out and touch an individual on a visceral level, then I.G. Frederick did so for this reader. Not an easy accomplishment, for I have layers of scars over those wounds. Read SHATTERED if you’ve a lion’s heart. Live it if you dare.”

I found it amusing that another reviewer wrote: “This book only generated negative emotions for me – fury, disgust, loathing and sorrow,” without ever understanding that those were the emotions I wanted my readers to experience.

Broken and Shattered are in my opinion and that of others, important books. They show how BDSM can be used to justify abuse (something that happens too often in the real world). The revolted reviewer wrote: “Jessica’s understanding of BDSM is so perverted and twisted, it pisses me off.” That was precisely my point.

I have read too many blog posts from women who have been raped by a play partner who ignored their limits (one is too many, but I’ve read far more than that). The slave who titled Shattered had been the victim of not one, but two abusers who masqueraded as dominants and pretended to offer him the Master/slave relationship he craved.

A Master/slave relationship can be a beautiful symbiosis that exceeds vanilla couplings in intimacy and intensity. But, four times I have sheltered, literally or figuratively, someone escaping an abusive and parasitic relationship that was supposed to be symbiotic.

You ask about sales. These books haven’t sold a huge number of copies. One of the reasons is that they are not written to be erotic as in “sexually arousing.” They are more mainstream literary works with graphic sex and S&M than what people think of as erotica. But, I don’t want someone to pick up one of my books to read without knowing what they’re getting into.

One of the great things Nyla Alisia of  Pussy Cat Press did as part of creating fabulous new covers for the books was label them: “A Disturbing Erotic Novel” and “A Deeply Disturbing Erotic Novel.” No one should pick one up expecting a romance.

Last week, I was required to make Broken and Shattered, “inactive” on All Romance ebooks. I intend to fight that decision because although the consent in both is “questionable,” they do not contain non-consensual sex or non-consensual S&M. (Note, both books were reinstated, but they’re now hidden unless you’re logged in as are most of my short story collections on that site.)

It shouldn’t matter.

I’m also concerned that I’ll be required to remove Dommemoir. It’s a romance, but it does include  watersports and I’ve seen reports that that is making the censorship lists of some publishers/retailers. My cover designer, Nyla Alisia,  has said that reading Dommemoir “changed my life forever” and came up with the tagline: “WARNING: This book will change women’s perspective on relationship dynamics forever.”

Ashley Lister wrote in a review on Erotica Readers & Writers Association that “Dommemoir is a well-written story of sexual expression triumphing over sexual repression and a brand of true love that could only ever be experienced within the restrictions of a BDSM relationship. For those who are already familiar with this lifestyle, Dommemoir should prove a telling tale where readers can recognise their own experiences and preconceptions as they are met and managed. For those who don’t know the lifestyle but are curious to learn more, Dommemoir will give a fascinating insight to unimagined possibilities.”

I also expect to have trouble with my next book, Playing With Dolls, which I intend to release later this month, because it also contains questionable consent.

I spent too much time last week (time I could have spent writing or prepping for a class I’m teaching) changing many of the keyword tags on Smashwords. Those would be the ones that make it possible for people who like what I write to find my stories.

I will have to re-title and possibly rewrite “Jail Bait” (a story I had planned to publish this week) not because it includes “underage” sex, but because the male waits until midnight on the female’s 18th birthday to initiate sex. Is that long enough under the circumstances? Is the fact that she wants sex with him before that arbitrary date/time, but he insists on waiting make my story “obscene”?

I object to having my work censored, pre- or post-publication. I admit that many of my short stories, often originally written for men’s magazines, are pure wank-off material, but I see nothing wrong with that.

However, some of my short stories and all of my novels are written to make readers think. They’re inspired by ugly things I see in this world. Playing with Dolls, for example, was motivated by a letter to an advice columnist in which the writer complained that her friend was going to marry an “obviously” gay man — obvious, according to her, because he was effeminate. My letter to that columnist which refuted the friend’s concerns based on the possibility that the couple she was concerned about might be in a FemDom/sissy boy relationship was ignored.

I know lots of effeminate males. Ninety percent are straight and most of the other 10 percent are bisexual. I also know many gay males. Most of them are about as macho as a guy can be. You’re not likely to find a more butch male than a gay leatherman. Unlike macho straight guys, a gay leatherman has absolutely no exposure to anything female in his personal life. But our society insists on equating “feminine male” with “gay.”

I got nailed by one of my beta readers because the m/m sex scenes weren’t erotic. Given that they’re written from the point of view of someone who doesn’t like gay sex, well, duh. I won’t look for a publisher for Playing With Dolls because it’s such an unusual book. It’s a coming of age story about someone who’s been kicked so hard by societal misconceptions (including his own parents) that he ends up in abusive BDSM relationships. Transgressive, yes. Best seller, not likely. Censor target, I’m sure it will be.

There’s something wrong with a country in which children are routinely abused by their parents and their priests and no one does anything about it, while our educational system produces people who only know how to take tests and are unable to think critically, and our infrastructure is crumbling around us. But we waste resources censoring books that might make a reader uncomfortable.

I should have the right to write and sell anything that anyone else will buy.

I also strongly respect the right of any reader to draw a line that they don’t wish to cross in their reading experience. But, I will fight any person who tries to move that line for anyone else. No one should be permitted to force someone to read what they finds offensive, but that reader shouldn’t be able to prevent anyone else from reading that same material just because they don’t like it.

Any author who believes this censorship doesn’t apply to them because they don’t write erotica or anything “squicky,” needs to look up the poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller about the Holocaust and those who didn’t speak up until it was too late. I also urge them to remember that almost half the top 100 novels of the 20th century have been targeted by book banners including: The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, The Lord of the Flies, Orwell’s 1984, and, of course, Nabokov’s Lolita.

The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents government from “abridging the freedom of speech.” But, corporations (who currently own the government) can arbitrarily decide what can and can’t be sold on their sites or what work we can pay for or receive payment from through their systems. Today PayPal won’t allow pseudo-bestiality or pseudo-incest. Tomorrow they can ban any works they choose. I’m guessing LGBT relationships will be the next target.

Don’t think that will happen? Were you paying attention three years ago when Amazon removed all LGBT books and authors from its search engine?  Some of those books STILL have not had their visibility restored.

When you search for “homosexuality in books” on Amazon you STILL get: A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, 101 Frequently Asked Questions About Homosexuality, and Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men and Women in the top ten — all books based on the fabricated theory that the bible says homosexuality is an “abomination.” If you change the list to “most popular” you won’t find any of those books. People are NOT buying the books Amazon claims are most relevant, but those are the books Amazon delivers to your screen when you search for that word.

If you care about the fact that corporations are deciding what you can and can’t read, there are things you can do:

1. close your PayPal and eBay accounts and tell them why you’re doing so (money talks)
2. tell retailers who only accept payment via PayPal why you won’t buy from them
3. don’t buy books from Amazon unless you can’t find them anywhere else.
4. tell all your friends/fans to do the same.

Busted Boobies or Titting Around with Cover Art

This post originally appeared Jan. 8, 2012 on K.D. Grace’s blog, “A Hopeful Romantic”.

When I got the rights back to the first two novels I’d had published, Broken and Shattered, I engaged the talented Nyla Alisia who works with me at Pussy Cat Press to create new covers for them. The publisher’s covers gave no clue as to what the books are about and had done nothing to sell them. I wanted to correct that.

While cruising a stock photo agency website, I happened upon the perfect picture for the Broken cover. The model looked like the protagonist, she appeared vulnerable, what she wore spoke to the dichotomy of the roles Jessica plays in the book, and the expression on her face was appropriately haunted. I turned the photo over to Nyla along with a synopsis, the first few chapters of the book, and the pitch:

Jessica lived luxuriously until her father lost everything in the dot.com bust. To continue her graduate studies and support herself, Jessica begs her professor for a research assistant’s position. He refuses unless she agrees to also serve as his slave. When in desperation she consents, he breaks her. Then, Jessica discovers she has a Dominant streak and exploits it.

What Nyla sent back was absolutely awesome. She had created a new background of a broken mirror, harshened the model’s makeup making her look even more haunted, and darkened the shadows. She selected the perfect font (aptly named “kink”) which I echoed inside the book using it for chapter headings and drop caps.

She created the subhead of “A Disturbing Erotic Novel” and added the tag line “Some things can never be fixed” to the epub cover and as the title of the description on the back of the print cover.

I was thrilled, amazed, and exhilarated to see a cover that so well captured what the book is about. I uploaded Broken to Amazon (print and Kindle), Erotica Romance Books, All Romance books, and Smashwords.

Imagine my surprise and consternation when I logged into my Smashwords dashboard more than a week later and discovered this note posted for Broken: “some of our retailers are cracking down on even illustrated nudity. Could you cover up our lady’s nipples a bit? ”

Say what? Of five distributors/retailers they were the only ones to express concern. And, they weren’t complaining that the novel contained graphic sexual content, non-consensual BDSM, coerced slavery, and a professor who pimps his students out to other members of a university’s faculty. No, they wanted her nipples, those sexualized conduits for breast milk, covered up.

Mine is hardly the first example of such censorship. On the Facebook page: “Amazon Censors” (of all places), the most recent discussions revolve around Smashwords censorship. According to Esmeralda Greene, “This isn’t new. Smashwords told me I had to change the cover of a book of mine before it would be accepted for their distributer’s channels because it used a *painting* that showed some nipple.”

I asked Mark Coker, Smashwords founder, about the censorship. His response: “Our policies have changed little in the last two years … We’ve always had a no-nudity policy on cover images. No nipples has always been standard policy. Other than nipples, fully bare breasts and penises on cover images, we and our retailers allow quite a bit.” He also took exception to the idea that there had been any recent changes to policies. “There’s always a chance that our policies have been applied inconsistently because the vetting process is a human process and subject to human error and subjectivity.”

I was left with the choice of being shut out of the Smashwords premium catalog or paying to have my cover remade. Frankly, I don’t care whether or not some of the Smashwords retailers carry my books. They don’t cater to an audience who has any interest in reading what I write. But, unless you are a publisher with more than 100 titles, the Smashwords premium catalog is the only way to get them listed on Ebook Eros (a Diesel eBooks company). I’ve written guest posts, been profiled, etc. on Ebook Eros. Most of the books I’ve published through Smashwords are listed there, including Shattered which is the sequel to Broken.

Coker did not answer my question as to why Smashwords has an all-or-nothing policy regarding distribution to retailers.

I spoke with Nyla. She is such a talented artist that she was able to hide the nipples without dramatically changing the look of the cover. She moved the model’s pearls over her right nipple and lengthened her hair over her left. On December 20, the cover was accepted into the premium catalog by Smashwords, which pushes it through (eventually) to Sony, Kobo, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Ebook Eros.

I decided I did not want to have two different (even subtly different) covers for the same book, especially given the confusion already caused by the fact that this is a second edition and some of the first edition books are still out there. I went ahead and replaced all versions of the book with the new cover, which took a considerable amount of my time.

So I’m out a bit of money and a lot of time for what? To cover up some nipples? For a book that’s billed as “a disturbing erotic novel”?

At the Erotic Authors Association’s (EAA) inaugural conference last September discussions turned more than once to the acceptability of violence over sex in mainstream literature. If one wrote about an underage woman having sex and wanted to have the work published, she couldn’t enjoy it. If she was raped, an author would have a much better chance of finding a publisher than if the sex was consensual and pleasurable. As disgusting as that might seem, it’s reflective of repressive attitudes toward sexual pleasure, especially female sexual pleasure.

What does it say about our society that we use sex to sell everything from soap to shoes and then freak out when a woman’s nipples are exposed on a book cover?

In an excellent post about the Dossier Journal cover controversy last month, Lisa Wade, PhD, notes that the “social and legislative ban on public breasts rests on a jiggly foundation. It’s not simply that breasts are considered pornographic. It’s that we’re afraid of women and femininity and female bodies and, if a man looks feminine enough, he becomes, by default, obscene.”

Does it worry you that the companies deciding what you get to read and how it’s presented were founded by megalomaniacs determined to keep what they decide is pornography off their electronic bookshelves,  try to run every other bookseller out of business while hiding anything written by or about LGBT people,  support bills in the U.S. Congress that would make Internet access in this country as limited as it is in China,  etc. are deciding what you get to read and how it’s presented?

At Her Feet: Powering Your Femdom Relationship

This post originally appeared Nov. 12, 2011 on 4-Letter Words.

In many ways, At Her Feet: Powering Your Femdom Relationship by TammyJo Eckhart & Fox is the factual counterpart of my novel Dommemoir. Both offer a glimpse of one woman’s journey into the world of FemDom along with the thoughts from the male at her feet.In telling her story, TammyJo shares a lot of practical tips and wisdom that she gathered along the way. I very much wish that such a book had been available to me when I first recognized and started exploring my own identity as a FemDom.

As TammyJo says: “Today you can barely find an online community where the sidebars aren’t riddled with … so-called femdoms in collars and impossibly high heels screaming profanities at the rather ugly men cowering before them.”

I never related to those concepts of FemDom. I never did understand why the so-called Mistress would be the one wearing the collar and I can’t wear heels of any height. More importantly, I want the man kneeling at my feet to be attractive, sexy, and macho.

In At Her Feet, TammyJo explains: “You start to figure out what really works for you and what doesn’t, and then you can begin to make conscious decisions about what to reject from the femdom model and what to embrace. When you start simply being dominant, for example, while wearing teddy bear slippers or torn sweatpants, and are still able to get your submissive to kneel at your feet with a mere word or look, you have crossed over to the mature state of femdom development.”

Now that statement resonated with me, as did: “We find it particularly amusing but also frustrating when the woman complaining about how all men are only interested in sex is wearing an outfit featuring a tight corset or thigh-high boots…Wear what empowers you as a femdom, but be realistic about the messages you are sending out.”

I set out to read At Her Feet with an open mind — interested in learning what another FemDom writer had to say about the dynamic, prepared to find many points of disagreement. But, except for a few common misconceptions about sociology,* I found the book informative, interesting and easy to read.

It contains a wealth of practical information that I believe would be useful to women (and men) trying to figure out what they need and want from a Femdom relationship. As the authors state: “If you’re struggling, then we think our experience might open your mind so you can re-examine what you both want and work on making his kneeling at her feet one of the best relationships of your life.”

I particularly found refreshing the acknowledgment of terminology ambiguity in statements like: “Words such as ‘master,’ ‘mistress,’ ‘slave,’ ‘pet,’ or whatever else you want to choose do not have fixed, universally-recognized meanings.”

As I wrote recently in a post about BDSM labels , there are many misconceptions, especially among males who misidentify as submissive, about the dynamics involved in a FemDom relationship.

TammyJo and Fox are frank about sharing the day-to-day realities of making a Femdom/slave relationship work: “We have play time and sex, and we make special plans to do complex scenes. That’s wonderful, but those ties are not what fuels this relationship day in and day out. … Instead, we are strengthened by the continual use of some rules, rituals, and protocols and our open acceptance of each other’s needs and desires. … Those are the things that will give you the power to last a lifetime.”

That echoes what I’ve written over and over in numerous e-mails and what my character, Alyssa, says in Broken: “My domination and his submission form the foundation of our relationship. The sadism and masochism are spice when we have time and I’m so inclined.”: Domination and submission are the important part of the equation, what you build a relationship on.”

If you’re new to FemDom, fantasize about it, or are trying to make it work in your relationship, I highly recommend At Her Feet: Powering Your Femdom Relationship.

*The only passages I took exception to are some of the “scientific” explanations where the authors quote erroneous information that’s been accepted as “facts” for decades or even centuries. For example, they rely on Abraham Maslow to define the difference between needs and wants. But his theory about the hierarchy of needs was never verified and indeed has been disproved in recent years by A. Mari Schaaf-Southard in Maslow and the Work Place, University of Michigan, March 2008. (Disclosure: I was on the advisory committee for that study.)

In addition, the authors fall back on questionable explanations of human pair bonding with statements such as “having either two producers or one producer with someone else to guard the material acquired or created has been a principal way families have survived since the beginning of time.” Christopher Ryan, Ph.D. and Cacilda Jethá, M.D. showed this to be part of a culturally tainted world view in Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality.

~

At Her Feet: Powering Your Femdom Relationship by TammyJo Eckhart & Fox (978-1890159795 : Greenery Press, available for $10.17 at Amazon)