On my last post, Selena Kitt made a particularly insightful comment about the sex writing in Fifty Shades of Grey: “For me, the sex was incredibly vanilla for a BDSM novel.”
I had to agree with her and then I went on to wonder why. It’s not that all the sex in the story was, physically, strictly vanilla. The restraint of her not being allowed to touch him is always there. And some of the scenes do have the physical trappings of BDSM, so why did it read so vanilla?
I came to the conclusion that writing BDSM sex is far less about the external scene than it is about how the person whose POV is represented in the narrative is interpreting it. The M/C in Fifty Shades of Grey has a very vanilla state of mind (and I would extrapolate and venture that E.L. James is probably not much of an avid practicioner of BDSM herself). And so, appropriately, she reads/interprets/experiences all the sex as vanilla, even when, externally, it doesn’t appear to be.
I think it’s something of an interesting writing exercise to think about this. Take, for instance, the most vanilla position on earth – the missionary position:
From a vanilla perspective, the missionary position allows for the partners to be face to face. It’s a very intimate, loving position with lots of gazing into the eyes of the other going on. It’s easy to kiss. Both partners are within easy reach of the other, to caress and be caressed.
From a power play perspective, it’s definitely a one person-on-top position. The top has all the freedom of movement. They control the thrust. The top’s weight can be interpreted as a form of physical bondage. And all it would take is the top having a firm hold on the bottom’s wrists to make it instantly kinky… if that lack of movement was of some internal significance to the bottom.
( It was just very rightly pointed out to me on twitter, by I.G. Frederick, that it is also perfectly possible to have a very D/s missionary fuck where the Dominant is on the bottom, too)
It’s really all about what kind of language you are using to describe how it feels. And it’s going to feel entirely different to either vanilla lover vs someone in a dominant or submissive role.
So, here’s my challenge: Have a go at writing the exact same sex act, using nothing but the tone of language and the POV of the narrator to present it as either kinky or vanilla.
If you take up my challenge but post to your own blog, please leave a comment to link to your efforts. I’d really love to see how different writers experiment with this.
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