Best Sex Writing 2009 by Rachel Kramer Bussel Read Free Book Online Page A

phenomenon of women writing porn. One academic, analyzing Asking for Trouble , quoted the above dialogue and said,“So once again then, we see in the woman who liberates her sexuality and embraces eroticism the simultaneous flight from selfhood.”
    Huh? Flight from selfhood? Isn’t half the point of sex the way in which we can transcend ourselves? (What’s the other half? Some- one remind me? Oh, yes: cock.) In Split , my spooky puppets-and- bondage novel, I explore what submission and degradation mean a little bit more. Kate is falling in love with Jake, the strange and beautiful curator of an isolated puppet museum in the Yorkshire Moors. She’s gradually coming to understand how the power im- balance of their sexual relationship fulfills her:

    He breaks me down, strips me of inhibitions, and when I’ve sobbed and climaxed until I don’t know who I am, he wraps me in his arms, so soft and tender.
    Do I sound like a masochist? I don’t feel like one. The point isn’t the pain and I don’t suffer. Or rather, I go beyond suffering and into a new space. If I could get there without it hurting, I would. I think that’s why I like it when Jake calls me ‘slut’ and makes me feel bad. It takes me there, helps me lose myself […] and it’s as if I’m in a nothing space, floating. I am so free there.
    It’ssuchafeelingtobefreeofyourself.Ididn’tunderstand it at first. I think it scared me but I’m getting to know and understand it. I’m coming to realize that I want this not
    because I’m worthless and I must suffer. It’s because I’m human and life’s tough. Letting go is so powerful. Sur- render transforms me. I adore oblivion.

    Kate, like Beth, is a woman conflicted about her sexuality. I think this is true of a lot of people whose kinks are on the dark side, and I think this is okay. We hear a lot about “sex positivity” and having a “healthy” attitude; and while I applaud the sentiment it leaves me feeling a tad uncomfortable. It seems so neat, clean, and tidy, and leaves little space for angst or doubt. Where we want to go and what we want to do or be done to us can be disturbing, terrifying, up- setting, and exciting. It’s pleasure but not as they know it. Accept- ing conflict and contradiction is a significant part of accepting our messy sexual selves. I’m sure “sex positive” was originally meant to encompass this but it’s easily miscast to imply unproblematic happy- jolly-fucky sex. It can make me feel dirty, and not in a good way.
    I like brutes and bullies with a nice line in contempt. I like back alleys, seediness, and squalor. I like scary scenarios that make my heart beat faster. All these things break down the ego and strip away the veneer of the civilized self. And when you’re without that constructed identity, when your dignity and self-respect have been put on hold, then boundaries shift, inhibitions are lost. If anything, those who like to indulge in being broken down need to have a very secure sense of self. They must be continually piec- ing themselves back together again afterward.
    I imagine a scene. To some eyes, it may look like a woman on her knees in a crack den, sobbing in shame with her hair full of piss, being mocked by a couple of thugs. But for plenty of people, suffering and degradation is intensely erotic. It’s the pleasure of unpleasure, of being split between yes and no. I like it there. I’m comfortable.The scented candles can go hang!

    What’s “normal” sex?
    Br ian Alexander

    This month the American Psychiatric Association announced the names of “working group” members who will guide the develop- ment of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the codex of American psychiatry.
    Not surprisingly, given the DSM’ s colorful history, particularly when it comes to sex, controversy erupted within days of the an- nouncement, especially over membership of the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders working group,