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Guest091010-2 · 04-01-2010, 09:06 AM

Ohhh I would LOVE to have a sexy bookclub! Maybe we could have theme nights that relate loosely to the book we are discussing? Just PLEASE none of the twilight books or any of that over hyped crap! If this actually comes about then someone just pm me with the details!

XOXOXOXOX

Ezmerelda · 04-05-2010, 01:43 AM

Im in!!! I love Book Clubs, will head out to try to find my copy tomorrow.. i dont want to read too many more posts, and i hate for a plot of any book to be spoiled!!!

Miss Sophie Bella · 04-05-2010, 03:57 PM

I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm through about 3/4. It's a fun read! I've laughed out loud a number of times, reading things she describes while working with clients or her thoughts as she reflects on sessions because almost identical things have crossed my lips or my mind.

I disagree with many of the author's perspectives on BDSM. She seems to pity kinky people and comments over and over that she was repulsed by their shame. She misunderstands the ways that what looks humiliating and insulting, but is actually played out in a safe context, can be incredibly intimate and rewarding. I'm particularly annoyed with her classifications of things like sadism and edge play as though only psychologically sick people enjoy those things. (But then, I'm always really put off by people who want to analyze sex in politically correct terms).

Her ideas about BDSM are influenced too heavily by the context in which she experienced it. I can't imagine walking into a scene with no previous interaction with a client, setting a timer and just being "on". I really feel for her on that level. But I would expect that someone with her level of experience in the kink world would have been able to see a broader perspective. There's a particular passage where she rants about the word "consent" and how we use it to justify many things she views as not being okay. That one really got me. I'm reserving judgment until I finish the book, but I'm feeling as though Ms. Febos and I have some very divergent views on sexual behavior...it's overall an entertaining work.

Has anyone finished it yet?

jsparrow · 04-05-2010, 04:46 PM

I only have 30 pages to go...will finish it tomorrow.

I guess you haven't yet gotten to the part where she starts participating on the submissive side. Interesting things yet to come.

She IS pretty disdainful of women who keep coming back into the scene but I think her perspective does grow as the book progresses.

Well written and, thankfully, short. Thanks for the suggestion Sophie Bella.

jsparrow · 04-08-2010, 07:09 PM

Well F****. Lucky Barrett. After all this we get the White Knight and the Fairy Tale ending. Please!!!

No wonder she misunderstands BDSM...I don't think she actually participated. Methinks the Sarah Lawrence grad is making money on a totally fictitious memoir and laughing at us.

Well written but I am miffed that I spent time pondering her circumstance.

Can we move next to "Bonk"??? Now that's REAL!!

ElisabethWhispers · 04-15-2010, 08:41 AM

I finished this book last week and it's taken me this long to respond with some of my thoughts.

Jeesh. One of the MAJOR problems that I'm finding while trying to learn and play in this realm is exactly what I found in this book. Posing. I think that she was just playing around but I'm not sure. The text mostly focused on scenarios that would cause the reader who didn't know of such things to go, "Oh my!". But it did lack something. It's that "something" that I cannot seem to get my head around.

The book was thick from the beginning with the whole dominatrix theme and then it quickly went through her stopping drugs, having visits with a therapist (completely self-absorbed) and then her love life.

So much of it, for those of us with more than a little life experience, leaves me with a feeling of "what"?

For example, her drug use is pretty much a large focus of 3/4 of the book. Then, it pretty much stops. That, folks, isn't the way that it happens for most people. Stopping anything is a long and difficult road.

Suddenly, she plays around with drug use and goes to meetings and then completely stops. Doesn't sound like she went through too much pain about it. Not that I WISH that for her but this whole book isn't much of a primer for wanna-be dominatrix's, an informative book about herself (if it's true) or certainly not a how-to book to find happiness.

Of course, it's supposedly a biography.

I have no doubt that some of this is true. But I just don't believe that she delved that deeply into anything. Look at her picture on the back cover. You see, basically, an ingenue of sorts. There is NOTHING behind her eyes. No depth.

Which is the way that I view this book. She did write some good stuff. But it's forgettable. There is some grit to it. But I'm not sure if it's just crafty word-smithing or what.

I know that I'm being critical. But nothing really made me smile. One part of the book that I appreciated for myself is when a soon-to-be boyfriend was questioning her spending the night with an ex-female-lover. THAT made sense. And was insightful.

I'm sure that there were several areas of the book that I gleaned over and didn't really "catch" hard psychological significances. But I was getting to the point that I felt that I had to finish it so I did my Miss Speed Reading gig on it for most of the last 70 pages or so.

I'm glad that she has found true happiness. Duh. May she have beautiful children and feel a sense of happiness that she was so wild, carefree and had such great experiences to write about.

Her education is impressive. She's lovely. Beautiful, actually. Has a gift for writing. She's probably great in bed and looks HOT while smoking a cigarette, wearing a black leather corset and being a bad girl. But her book? A solid "D". Pretty much.

But I'm VERY open for a good and sassy back and forth from others.

Hugs,
Elisabeth

ElisabethWhispers · 04-15-2010, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsparrow

Well F****. Lucky Barrett. After all this we get the White Knight and the Fairy Tale ending. Please!!!

No wonder she misunderstands BDSM...I don't think she actually participated. Methinks the Sarah Lawrence grad is making money on a totally fictitious memoir and laughing at us.

Well written but I am miffed that I spent time pondering her circumstance.

Can we move next to "Bonk"??? Now that's REAL!!

http://www.amazon.com/Bonk-Curious-C...1339046&sr=8-1

Sounds very interesting. I'm all for choosing a book that either many of us have already read, "Story of O" for example, or something fun that someone has read and suggests.

Just a thought. I'm sure that others have a lot to add about their interpretations of "Whip Smart". Anyone???

Elisabeth

Miss Sophie Bella · 04-15-2010, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElisabethWhispers

http://www.amazon.com/Bonk-Curious-C...1339046&sr=8-1

Sounds very interesting. I'm all for choosing a book that either many of us have already read, "Story of O" for example, or something fun that someone has read and suggests.

Just a thought. I'm sure that others have a lot to add about their interpretations of "Whip Smart". Anyone???

Elisabeth

I will share my thoughts now that I've finished the book soon...but first:
http://www.ted.com/talks/mary_roach_...ut_orgasm.html

Ezmerelda · 04-19-2010, 10:40 PM

Went to the bookstore for the initial book listed, (now after reading the ending posts) I am excited I choose the Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Although the Story of O was fabulous.

has anyone seen the movie, The Pet? sure there are not A list actors, and it is a little corny, but fcuk if this movie did not move me.