Thanks!
Thanks!Thank you for spoiling me over the holidays. I am grateful to everyone who reads my books and blogs… and I’d love to hear more from you this year. You know I’m a feedback whore–feed me, dammit! :D!
D/s-15 Receives 5 Stars
At the midway point in Season Two, this episode of my Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Femdom Space Opera dropped a few bombshells, and readers are loving it! Check out and *like* their Goodreads reviews.
If you haven’t started the series yet, have no fear. You can jump in by getting The First Season at a discount, and don’t forget to get the Supplement, which contains all the behind-the-scenes tidbits as well as charts and episode synopses.
Newsletter
Be sure to sign up for my newsletter, because D/s Episode 16 will be released soon, and I will notify newsletter subscribers only — there won’t be a separate blog post.
Also, you will receive a coupon off your first book and tons of other goodies in the future. So sign up now, at the bottom of this page!
Eli Gets New Covers!
HUGE thanks to toymax for creating new covers for the “Eli” series!
To view the others, look here.
Jessie Spectre and I wrote the “Eli” series, and it won the Silver Award for Erotica at the IPPY Awards last year! In addition to the honor, we received an actual medal and certificate (See the original blog post).
Last month, toymax asked why I didn’t have the medal on the cover, and I said it was on my to-do list. He immediately offered to create them for me. As of this posting, I’ve only changed my website’s .pdf version, but, before the week is out, I will have updated all my online stores–including the epub on my site, too.
If you already downloaded the “Eli” series and want the official cover which prominently displays the award, you can re-download the book.
Max, I am so grateful to you; Vielen Dank!
Let me know what you think of the new covers!
Mistress Mia’s Mentionables
Mistress Mia’s Mentionables
Speaking of the “Eli” series, I had a conversation with Mistress Mia last month, where she told me this (and gave me permission to publish):
I believe Eli should be turned into a movie, but you already know since it’s a long haul series, nobody in Hollywood is gonna wanna do it right, as at least a trilogy. They’re gonna want to try to condense everything down into like 1.5 to 2 hours max, and Eli has way more to it than that.
That comment made my heart melt, but then Mistress Mia added this:
Eli is the first erotic or adult natured book I’ve read in quite some time. I could not do any of the Gray series after reading the first three chapters of the first book. And this is coming from a bitch who likes vampires in space and boxes that send you to Hell to do frisky shit, so that says a lot.
Indeed, it does say a lot. *Huge hugs* to Mistress Mia. I shared those thoughts with Jessie, who equally sends his gratitude.
And since we’re in the Mistress Mia section, it’s only proper to quote her Goodreads review here:
I like to think myself a connoisseur of erotica and I can’t explain how much I really enjoyed this book. I guess technically I can… so much so that I ended up buying all of them, lol. It’s a great series from a great author who really knows what she’s writing about firsthand. You can tell by her in depth use of Kinky and BDSM adult themed language that she has been in the circles and she knows about these people. Will definitely be looking into more of her books and hopefully another series.
Hop on over to Goodreads (I’ve linked you) and “like” her review! While you’re there, “like” Eli’s other reviews, too!
I’m excited about this new 2025 feature! First up: The movie “Babygirl”.
WARNING: There will be spoilers–not that anything can be spoiled, because there was no actual plot… but I’m ahead of myself.
Claire and I went to see “Babygirl”, and I’m interested in the kink community’s take on it. I don’t want to say anything to influence anyone, but it was HORRIBLE, and I fear it will set the public’s perception of kink back by decades.
There were two women sitting in front of us who I thought, for sure, were in the wrong theater. I cornered them as they exited to ask what they thought of it. After widening their eyes and shrugging at each other, one told me, “I guess he got his dog.”
The other one nodded and told me that her daughter warned her against the writer/director–Halina Reijn–for being “out there”, and stated she needed to read the book to understand the movie. There is no book; Reijn wrote it as a movie script.
The comment of “getting his dog” is amusing. There’s a scene toward the end that shows “him” with a well-trained canine. The “him” is a 27-year-old intern who plays a dominant. Mind you, there’s a subtle parallel between training a dog and training a human, but it’s not about a dog.
I’ll speak more about this in the next blog post, but my point is that a pale vanilla audience will not understand the movie. *I* didn’t understand the movie, either! Why? Because there was NO PLOT.
The movie opens with a voice-over of Nicole Kidman groaning out an orgasm. The first shot is of her cowgirl on a male. We’re provided zero information about either of them, but we can see Kidman. After the climax, the pair collapse into quicker-than-brief cuddle, then Kidman immediately creeps out of bed and runs into a home office, where she frantically opens a laptop while glancing nervously over her shoulder.
At that point, I thought she had trapped the guy into sex in order to steal propriety information from his laptop.
But no, it’s her house, the guy’s her husband, and the laptop is also hers. She scrolls to a taboo porn clip where the (off-screen) older guy dominates (via voice-over) an implied little girl. Kidman then lies on her stomach and masturbates to the clip.
We never find out what childhood trauma she experienced. In fact, we don’t find out anything about any character, not their motivation, where they came from, how anyone met (except the 27yo and Kidman), which makes the movie empty.
I read many movie reviews and watched several interviews of Reijn in an attempt to learn what the movie was intended to be. Usually, a moviegoer can figure out a movie from its plot, but again, “Babygirl” has no plot. In fact, Reijn provides conflicting purposes in several interviews.
In one, Reijn said she wanted to depict a woman exploring her own body. Fail. A woman masturbating to underage play is not the equivalent of exploring her own body.
In another interview, Reijn said she wanted to spoof the ‘90s erotic thriller movies, like “Basic Instinct” and “Fatal Attraction”. In fact, “Babygirl” is billed as an erotic thriller. At one point during the movie, I thought about “Fatal Attraction”… but it fails to connect. Why? Because there was no plot! There wasn’t anything “thriller-ish” about the movie because a movie cannot build without a plot. For that matter, it was barely erotic, either.
In yet another interview, Reijn said she wanted to play with the female gaze. An article by Very Well Mind states: “The male gaze describes a way of portraying and looking at women that empowers men while sexualizing and diminishing women.” If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you can read the full article here.
So what’s the female gaze? A Backstage article explains it as: “…viewing women less as sex objects and trophies for another character to ‘win,’ but rather as fully expressed, complicated, and autonomous people.” The full article is worth a read and does a wonderful job explaining the two gazes.
“Babygirl” depicts a middle-aged woman successfully married to a guy (Antonio Banderas), has two daughters, is CEO of a major corporation… who risks everything to enter into a D/s relationship with a 27yo intern at her work. We don’t know how she rose to power (except for a snippet at the end), or anything else about her except she wants to be dominated.
The most reprehensible part about “Babygirl” is that Kidman’s character laments her “dark thoughts” and says she is “abnormal”. There is no explicitly-stated message to the contrary. Nothing about how kink is a part of who you are. The bulk of the movie shows Kidman’s character degraded and humiliated by the 27yo, who doesn’t understand protocol.
There’s so much more to say, but I will stop here because I want to hear from you. Who’s seen the movie? Who’s seen the trailer? What do you think? What would you like to add about the male/female gaze? Gimme your thoughts for the next “Up for Discussion”!
I recently met John Gemini in smedia, and we traded books. I asked him to introduce himself…
Why Did I Write ‘The Therapist’? ~ By John Gemini
What makes us want to be tied or to tie someone? What makes us want to be made to suffer or inflict pain on others? Why do we crave the sting of a whip, the bite and significance of a collar, the sight of another’s tears, or the salty tang of our own?
In short… to control or be controlled? To dominate or submit?
Personally, I knew I was into BDSM from my very early years, and pre any sexualisation. It’s always been this thing within me that I have been desperate to understand; the constant need to try to make sense of it.
Around 20 years ago, I had several sessions with a psychotherapist who specialised in BDSM. One thing in particular that she told me helped more than anything else and that was….
If you’re into this stuff DO NOT try to ignore it or to find a miracle cure. You will fail miserably!
Instead, embrace it and focus on thoroughly understanding yourself. Know what you want and learn how to fulfill these desires safely in a consensual way. Be honest with yourself and accept who you are, as it isn’t something you should be ashamed of.
Those wise words ultimately prompted me to change my life completely. I met a lovely lady who started out as my submissive, progressed to collared slave and is now my loving wife. She has a delightfully pragmatic view on BDSM, which is basically to stop thinking and start doing! And she’s right.
I can’t switch off the analytical part of my brain, but I can choose to accept, to embrace, to indulge. I can choose to not overthink and just live in the moment.
All of the above was very much in my mind when I decided to write ‘The Therapist’.
I wanted to write a story that explores the complexities of BDSM without being too preachy or overly analytical, but to give a genuine insight into the minds of those who are drawn into this lifestyle. I don’t claim to be a therapist, but I wanted to share my fascination of the psychology behind BDSM, and how different people deal with it in different ways.
The book is a mixture of emotions, psychology and lots of kinky depravity! The story takes you through the exploration of both sides of BDSM: the power and the vulnerability; the pleasure and the pain; and the joy and the fear. Debbie, our kinky therapist and dominatrix, navigates the complex world of kink, where boundaries blur and desires intertwine, all while trying to maintain her professionalism and integrity.
And all of that with a storyline, twists, deceit, lightheartedness and identifiable characters…. I hope I’ve succeeded.
To John ~ Thank you for sharing. I look forward to a long-term friendship with you and your wife!
Read my five-star review, read the book, then tell me what you think!
Here’s what you said after the last blog post.
rubbug ~ I hope your Christmas was great and Santa treated you right. But considering how he is portrayed in A Domme For Christmas, he’d need supporting items. [HAHA! It was wonderful, thank you]
Congrats on releasing D/s 15. It was an awesome read and it was interesting to read how Gaius was a bit quieter than usual. Hopefully that gets explored more, for a long time. [Methinks you’re sucking up, rb–or should I say The Gaius Hater??]
Cool to see the feedback on your future boxing champ mock up. I think sep got it right with “a little afraid, and alotta excited” [haha!]
toymax ~ Holy moly, You didn’t promise too much when You announced some bombshells. Thank You for a very special Episode. You wrote, that I’m not a masochist, but it was cruel fun to read it while being caged – doesn’t that make me at least a little bit of a masochist? *grin* [I knew you’d love that episode, Max! As for being a masochist; you win! You’re a teensy bit of a masochist *grin*]
I did a part of (Mistress – Herrin) my birthday posting during the last weekend. My problem is, I don’t know what/how to write about it for Your blog, since nothing exciting happened, Miss B.J. [You and I have spoken, and I’ve tweaked the challenge a bit. I look forward to your second attempt, Max. For everyone else, I made a special birthday posting for Max, which you can see here]
Multiperv ~ Congrats on getting ep. 15 of D/s done and out. Are you enjoying it as much as when you started? And do you have the overall arc and ending already mapped out like you do with most of your books or is this more “Let’s see where it goes and enjoy the ride in the meantime”? [This is the first time I’ve started a book or series without knowing the ending. I am loving it MORE than when I started because of the amazing feedback so far. Plus, it’s getting into some heavy soap opera twists–which I DID plan before starting to write. :)]
I liked Thomas’ [Antonson] advice to potential Domcon newbies but would add newbies going solo will know you to a degree, and now SEP and Claire. [What a cool point, MP! Thanks for that!]
Yes, if you do a holiday book next year I’d recommend trying to release it earlier in the month, or maybe even around Thanksgiving, as I think many people are done with Christmas movies and music around Dec. 27 plus, as you alluded to, an earlier release means more feedback that may help drive other sales. [*Nodding* I’ve already got the entire plot for my 2025 xmas novel. AND, Jessie Spectre and I are going to write a collection of Halloween shorts]
sizeerrorprojection ~ I appreciate the kudos from MP, but there was no direct coaching or training provided, except by example. There was organizing aplenty! I hope you enjoyed your Christmas gift from your Throne’s Wishlist immensely! [STOP! You were an integral component of B.J.’s Boys *grin* And yes, I was spoiled this season and am grateful to everyone for sending me huge cyber hugs!]
I have much catching up to do on my reading! D/s and Mistletoe Bound! Can’t wait to continue after a super busy holiday this year! [I’m hankerin’ for feedback, sep! Quickly! :D]
Send me your comments, and I’ll put them in the next blog post!
B.J.’s Online Book Club
Time to vote for the next Book Club book!
The next Online Book Club is Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 4:00 p.m., Eastern. VOTE now for which book we will discuss.
DM me to be included:
bdsmlr ~ Not Safe for Work
Tumblr ~ Questionably Safe for Work
Twitter ~ Safe for Work
TwitterNSFW ~ Not Safe for Work
FetLife ~ Safe for Work
Right Here ~ Safe for Work
BDSM Checklists
Check out my FREE BDSM Checklists.
I created two BDSM Checklists to assist with communication and negotiation. One is grouped by fetishes and the other is an alphabetical listing, and both have spaces for you to fill in additional ones.
Make sure you check out the Checklists! Then, let me know what you think and how you used them.
Do you have a kinky question you’d like answered? Use the contact form to submit your question. All questions will be kept anonymous unless you’d prefer to be named.
For other kinky advice, check my blog archives.
Happy reading,
~B.J.
