There’s a famous episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye Pierce calls a fictional restaurant in Chicago, Adam’s Ribs, and orders take-out to Korea. What prompts this bit of madness is a string of weeks where every time he goes to the mess tent the only choices are “liver or fish.” To which Hawkeye states that he’s already eaten “a river of liver and an ocean of fish” and begins a battle-cry among his comrades of “We want something else!” while dancing around banging on his metal food tray.
That’s exactly how I’m feeling about BDSM in erotic romance.
Contrary to what the media seems to think, E.L. James did not invent BDSM fiction. It’s been around for ages, in both erotica and erotic romance. I’ll admit BDSM has never been a favorite theme of mine. Chalk it up to having too many battle scars left over from the early heyday of erotic romance. Authors who were shooting for “dominant hero” but instead landed in “Neanderthal Not-Even-Housebroken Jerk” territory. Wimpy heroines, who were mealy-mouthed, couldn’t speak their own minds, but tie them up and whip them with some chains and suddenly they’re Xena, Warrior Princess. Authors who failed to realize that the submissive role in BDSM does have power and that the relationship dynamic between a dominant and submissive requires the utmost trust.
Aside from my various encounters with books where the theme was not handled well, the BDSM trope is quickly devolving into repetition. This is genre fiction, and genre fiction has always relied on tropes and themes. How many secret babies, oil tycoons, sheikhs, and friends-to-lovers have we all read in the genre? Tons. Yet authors continue to take these tropes, tweak them, infuse them with interesting characters, and that’s why we come back for more. In my opinion, BDSM has failed to do this because authors keep repeating themselves.The hero is always the dominant force. The heroine is always looking for fulfillment and finds it by being submissive. The hero is always closed off emotionally and the heroine teaches him how to love. And there is always the ubiquitous S&M club scene where the dominant character takes the wide-eyed innocent character to expand their sexual horizons.
Not all reader preferences are one size fits all. Not all of us have “fantasies” about being “dominated” by a brutish hero. Not all readers have fantasies of a Daddy-type spanking us because we were “naughty.” And not all of us are reading erotica as a way to fulfill whatever fantasies we may or may not have. Some of us simply read it because we like it, or in my case, when done well, it contains feminist underpinnings I find refreshingly subversive. Yet prevailing thought seems stuck on female readers secretly wanting to be dominated with Dom heroes quickly out-pacing Navy SEALs on the Romance Novel Land census chart.
You know what I want? I want something else. A dominant heroine. A true, honest-to-goodness, Domme heroine. Not a switch. Not a Domme heroine who suddenly wakes up one morning and decides, “You know, I’ve got this all wrong, I want to be a sub!” Not a Domme villain. A Domme heroine who stays Domme throughout the whole story. Constantly casting the hero in this role is not only repetitive and boring, it got old and tired for me after the 1000th book.
And can we stop with the sex clubs already? My kingdom for a couple who wouldn’t know where the trendy neighborhood sex club is even if they had an atlas, compass and GPS. If erotica reading has taught me anything it’s that kinky sex can happen in other locales besides in S&M clubs—even in the boring privacy of your own home. It almost makes me long for the days when historical heroines routinely got deflowered while riding on horseback. At least that would feel refreshing compared to a sex club.
Am I being fair to BDSM erotic romance? Probably not. I can even admit that someone who routinely gobbles up category romances probably shouldn’t be throwing stones at overused tropes that lack imagination. What the real concern for me is that I’m having a hard time finding anything unique within the BDSM theme that puts a different spin on it.
So tie me up and flog me, BDSM fans. Tell me about books where the heroes aren’t Doms, the heroines aren’t subs, and nobody sets foot into a sex club. Seriously, I’m waiting.
Wendy the Super Librarian also blogs at WendyTheSuperLibrarian.blogspot.com. So dig that library card out of your pocket and head for the stacks.
