~Subject: Celestial Reviews 19 - Sept 13
~From: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801)
~Date: 13 Sep 1995 15:52:17 -0400
~Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories

Celestial Reviews 19 - Sept 13, 1995

Note: Just a few stories again, but these received some high ratings. 
Hope you enjoy them.

- Celeste

      "The Party" by Verity Chastain (D&s) 10
      "The Morning Rush" by StoryMan (Sex in a car) 8
      "DNA" by (Transgender) 10
      "Married Love #1" by Unknown Author (Restful,
            romantic sex) 9

"The Party" by Verity Chastain.  This is a story about a woman who attends
a party given by a close friend who wants to inflict sexual pain and
humiliation on her.  The woman suffers greatly but finds it to be an
extremely erotic experience.  As I have said before, I am not a D&s
enthusiast, and so I am approaching this story as a person outside the
genre.  My opinion is that the story is well written and offers a good
representation of that genre.  I would like to raise some serious
questions about this type of story.  I hope I can do this without
appearing stupidly critical or incurring the wrath of D&s enthusiasts.  It
is my opinion that most of the people who read and write stories like this
are sane and at least as harmless to society as I am (and that's pretty
harmless!)

Please listen to what I am saying.  I am NOT demanding that these stories
be banned.  I just want to learn something about them, and I think a lot
of other a.s.s. readers would like to do so as well.  It is not entirely
reasonable for D&s enthusiasts to assume that these stories exist in a
vacuum - that only D&s enthusiasts will read the stories and everyone else
should just mind their own business.  People (like myself) who feel
uncomfortable with hurting others through sex would feel less anxious if
we could understand more precisely why these stories are considered by
others to be enjoyable.  For example, this particular story certainly
seems to suggest that it is a good idea for others to follow the lead of
the heroine; and we would like to know why that should not be considered
to be really bad advice.

Let me first point out some specific strengths of this story.  First, it
does mention the *safe word* in the text of the story.  According to the
FAQ from alt.sex.bondage, that's important; and I think it's a good
feature of this story to mention it.  Second, the characters in the story
practice safe sex by using condoms when having any form of sex with
strangers.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the present story
involves violence and humiliation against a consenting adult - it does not
rejoice in the degradation of an innocent victim.

Now let me look at the areas of conflict between D&s advocates and others.
 I'll take an approach that I think is non-confrontational. I have some
close friends who happened to be gathered at my house this weekend.  (Lots
of middle aged woman have "club" like this.  It's a combination of bonding
and nostalgia.)  I showed them this story and asked for their reactions. 
I think these are normal people.  

All of my friends were initially repulsed by the story.  I then assured
them that the story was written by an apparently sane person and that
intelligent people had told me that lots of people who read stories of
this kind have no intention of ever actually inflicting pain like this on
anyone else - that they just enjoyed thinking about it.  The overwhelming
reaction of my friends was, "Huh?"  I went on to say, "Let's look for
things that we *can* understand about the story."  Here are the things we
came up with that we did understand:

(1) All of us could understand how a person who has been through
tremendous suffering would feel grateful to and turned on by the person
who ended that suffering.  This happens near the end of story.  (Note:
Although everyone agreed that this was psychologically reasonable, nearly
everyone also said that it certainly sounded maladaptive.)

(2)  To varying degrees, we all could understand the feeling of being
turned on while being overcome by a powerful person.  For example,
sometimes when my husband makes love to me he pins my arms back and
renders me powerless, so that I couldn't resist even if I wanted to. 
However, I know perfectly well that he will do nothing to degrade or hurt
me. If I thought he would hurt me, I would avoid being put in that
situation; and if necessary, I would terminate the relationship with him. 
Most of my friends reported enjoying similar experiences.  Nearly all of
those who enjoyed these feelings also stated that they enjoyed giving as
well as taking - that is, they also liked the sensation of rendering their
lover helpless.  

In general, we all agreed that the pleasure we saw in this lay in the fact
that our lover was temporarily taking control of our pleasure.  All we had
to do was "sit back and enjoy it."  They saw no connection between
enjoying this aspect of "bondage" and the terrible pain and humiliation
inflicted in the story.  However two of them stated that to be honest they
had to admit that they would enjoy rendering their partner helpless and
forcing him to do their will even if he resisted - but only if the
activity was at least harmless and especially if they knew that in the
long run he would enjoy it.  An example of this was one woman who had been
allowed to blindfold and handcuff her husband.  She had previously rimmed
his asshole while he was asleep, and he had seemed to enjoy it
tremendously (but unconsciously).  During the handcuffing session, she
gently inserted a dildo into his asshole (although he resisted), and it
turned out to drive him to a stronger orgasm than usual.

(3) We could generally recognize the value of enduring pain as a way to
demonstrate love.  However, nearly all of us insisted that there had to be
an obvious benefit to the suffering to make us willing to endure pain
voluntarily.  (No one suggested that it was a good idea to go through pain
to demonstrate love for a person who did not deserve it.  And we generally
agreed that a person who inflicted pain capriciously would not deserve our
love.)  The one women who saw the greatest value in suffering as a
demonstration of love had been a member of a Catholic order of nuns for
several years.  The leaders of her order had insisted that she show blind
obedience to their instructions.  Although she did not suffer physical
torture herself, she recalled hearing stories of "saints" who scourged
themselves and showed extreme obedience by planting a stick and caring for
it so that it would grow (which was, of course, impossible).  This woman
(who is apparently sane and is now a leader in her school's PTA) says that
she still admires these saints.  However, this same woman has not gone to
church in the past ten years, because she resents the way she was treated.
 The rest of us considered this type of saintliness to be an example of
misguided religiosity.

(4)  We could generally agree that even a dangerous or degrading
experience could generate physiological sensations that could be
identified as pleasure.  However, this did not convince us that it made
sense to seek out such sensations.  This will be discussed later.

Here is what we did NOT understand:

(1)  We generally could not understand why a sane person would accept this
kind of pain and humiliation.  The level of pain the woman experienced
from her own husband was actually dangerous.  For example, after a night
of pleasure with her husband, the woman had welts on her thighs, bruises
on her wrists, bites on her neck, and two long parallel cuts on her
shoulder, so she doubted sincerely that anyone could miss the damage. 
When she went swimming, she had to wear a long, gauze black long-sleeved
shirt as a cover up.  When she complained to her husband, he threatened to
add a few more bruises.  Our question was this: how are we supposed to
tell the difference between this and a seriously dysfunctional
relationship?  If the woman went to court and could prove that she had not
given permission, any responsible judge would find the husband guilty of
serious abuse.

(2)  Although we generally agreed that even a dangerous or degrading
experience could generate physiological sensations that could be
identified as pleasure, we unanimously rejected the idea that this made it
sensible to seek out these sensations.  One of the women used the analogy
of bulimia.  The fact that a bulimic person enjoys engorging himself or
herself before vomiting does not negate the fact that this process is
dangerous to the body.  Likewise, seeking out torture that happens to
stimulate sexual organs would seem to be equally dysfunctional.

(3)  Most of my friends believed me when I told them that I was convinced
that the world was full nice, kind, adaptive people who read and enjoy
these stories but never actually submit to such degradation or impose it
on others.  However, they couldn't understand the logic behind such
reading habits; and they felt that the overall effect of these reading
habits would be to increase the likelihood that someone would be hurt.  I
countered with the argument that my husband liked westerns in which the
"good white men" blasted the brains out of the "ignorant savages" who
populated the west and interfered with America's manifest destiny.  I told
them that he was a nice guy who actually contributes to schools for Indian
children and who thinks that the Indians got a raw deal.  My friends told
me that my husband should get a life.

(4)  The one woman who had a Masters degree in psychology scoffed at the
notion that such stories were unlikely to lead to increased violence
against women.  She agreed that not every man who read such a story would
increase his violence and that not every woman would become more willing
to be degraded.  But she emphasized that the evidence is overwhelming that
people are *more likely* to perform activities that they view others being
rewarded for in films.  She said that the research of Albert Bandura
(former president of the American Psychological Association) has
repeatedly demonstrated this.  She could think of no reason why written
passages should be different from films.  When I asked her if this meant
that my husband would be likely to inflict harm on Native Americans, she
said yes - but that it was unlikely he would meet modern Indians that
closely resembled those depicted as savages in the B westerns.  She said
that a better example was the movie Clockwork Orange, which begins with a
violent rape scene.  When that movie first appeared, there was what she
called an epidemic of rapes with the same m.o of innocent women in real
life.  Likewise, she said, movies that show violence between blacks and
whites are known to lead to racial conflicts; and police departments are
so familiar with this phenomenon that they increase police presence when
such movies premiere.

I am aware that I am not presenting the results of a scientific survey.  I
am using my friends to organize and exemplify my own thinking and to
provoke yours.  I'd really like to know how others feel about this.  The
story is an excellent story - assuming that such stories are ever
excellent.  However, I think it would be useful to address in an objective
manner some of the issues raised in this review.  Even veteran D&s readers
and writers must be aware that there are neophytes looking in on a story
like this, and these beginners might make some serious mistakes on the
basis of imperfect information. (Rating: 10)

"The Morning Rush" by StoryMan (an355503@anon.penet.fi).  Have you ever
wondered how you could make better use of the time you spend sitting in
the car in those morning rush hours?  This story offers one solution.  A
man who is riding to work with his lover brings her off while they are
stalled in a traffic jam.  Let me assure you, things like this are really
possible.  A pretty good little snippet.  (Rating: 8)

"DNA" by Stephanie.(an266891@anon.penet.fi).  About every two weeks I get
an e-mail message from someone saying, "I know you don't like TG stories,
but would you mind reviewing this one?"  Actually, my record with TG
stories is pretty good: I think I've read six of them and rated all of
them 8 or better.  The reason I don't review more of them is simply a
matter of time: there are a lot of other stories that I need to read and
review.  In addition, the good TG stories that I've read have been rather
long - but worthwhile.

What appeals to me most about these stories is that they tend to be
clever: they examine interesting "what if" possibilities in creative ways.
 "DNA," like several other TG stories explores the question, "What would
it be like if a man were suddenly transposed into a woman's body?"  These
role-reversal stories almost always look at how a guy (or girl) feels when
he/she is forced to deal with events from the perspective of the
previously opposite gender.  This is fun, but the basic plot has been
tried many times, and it could become boring.  What seems to make the idea
persist is that authors look for creative complications to interject into
the plot.  This story has several creative ideas.

At the beginning of the story the young man gets turned into a clone of
his female boss's beautiful teenage niece by a genetically engineered
virus that alters the recipient's DNA.  The first interesting complication
is that when the boss needs someone to look after the guy/girl while she's
away from the house, the only eligible candidate is the niece herself.  So
we have the guy/girl being looked after by a girl who is essentially
his/her genetic twin.  Next the guy/girl gets seduced by the boss's
boyfriend.  Not too unusual so far - but suddenly it becomes apparent that
the virus can be sexually transmitted, and so the boyfriend starts to
mutate into another clone of the niece.  "Fortunately," the mad scientist
manages to inject a different strand of DNA into her soon-to-be-former
boyfriend.  This terminates his transformation midway - so this guy/girl
has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a man, but a different
man than his original self.  (Incidentally, all intellectual powers seem
to remain those of the original owners, although emotions tend to shift
with the body parts.)  

Interestingly, I found several points in this story when a character
became angry and could have shouted to someone else, "You can just go and
fuck yourself!"  This could be taken as a literal rather than metaphorical
statement - in more ways than one.  You'll have to read the story to
figure out what I'm talking about.  One unrealistic element is that when
Julie gets transformed to Jim, her brain continues to reside in her head,
instead of where it resides in most men. <chortle, chortle>

If, like most Americans, you had a really bad biology course in high
school, you will have the good fortune of thinking that the biological
aspects of the story are at least remotely realistic.  On the other hand,
if you are like most a.s.s. readers (intellectually as well as sexually
acute and inclined to be skeptical about simplistic ideas) or went to
school in New Zealand, you'll realize that even if viruses and DNA worked
the way they do in this story, the rest of the human body wouldn't.  Don't
let that bother you.  Consider the story to be science fiction, and know
only what the author wants you to know.

Perhaps I'm making this sound too complex - almost silly.  That's the
value of a story like this - it *is* silly, but silly in a very clever
way.  I'm not going to tell you any more about the plot.  Read it
yourself.  I'm pretty sure the virus cannot be transmitted through the
Internet - except for AOL users using Windows 95.  In that case, however,
you already have problems that are much more serious than having your
gender changed.  (Rating: 10)

"Married Love #1" by Unknown Author (an373359@anon.penet.fi).  This is not
really a full story - just a restful but hot passage about a guy and his
wife in a state of half-sleep, relaxing and making love.  While this story
has no character development, it has the advantage of making it easy for
the reader to project herself or himself into the fantasy.  I guess this
story describes why you'd ever want to bother marrying somebody - to have
that person always with you for relaxed and loving times like this.  Nice
story - but I wish authors would make up a name for themselves.  I think
readers would like to watch for other stories by this author; but it will
be hard to do so, unless she continues labeling them "Married Love #2",
etc.  (Rating: 9)