Positively kinky

After getting my knickers in a twist over ethics, I thought about sharing the sort of things I really like to write about to balance the debate about the areas I worry about. There is, of course, room for all sorts and I'm for freedom of expression, as a general rule, rather than censorship. As my grandmother likes to say, 'It'd be a dull world if we all liked the same thing.' But I do like to think about the worlds I'm creating with my words and the effects they might have.

There's one area I do like to explore, and that's kink as part of healthy, positive relationships. That might mean anything from people's tentative first steps to seasoned BDSMers. but it's always in an atmosphere of acceptance and openness.

Some of the comments I read in The Guardian's debate on porn, mentioned in my previous post, talked about the repression of desires. One actually put the words 'healthy' and 'repression' together. Now, I suppose if what you desire is to go out and kill people, it might be necessary to repress that (although I imagine therapy would have more long-term success!). But it doesn't take a degree in psychology to know that when otherwise reasonably civilised human beings repress a desire, it's going to manifest itself regardless in possibly unwelcome ways. Personally, I think people should be able to explore and express their sexual selves within loving relationships.

What this means is that my characters probably already know they're kinky, even if some of them may be at an early stage where they haven't fully admitted it to themselves or put it into so many words. I'm reminded of Sophie Morgan's Diary of a Submissive, in which she recalls her youthful fascination with Maid Marian, who would be forever getting captured by the baddies and in need of rescue. (Game of cops and robbers anyone?) I'm not going to write about people who have to be shown/taught that they're submissive (by the domineering asshole I mentioned in my last post) when they keep expressing reservations. A couple of recent blockbusters come to mind.

What all this also means is writing about people who've had time to build up trust in their relationship. Physical safety is an obvious issue, but it's also an emotional issue in knowing that someone accepts you as you are and wants to understand. So while I can see the attraction of a casual fling (in a literary sense!) and the fantasy of unpredictability, I mostly prefer to write about people who are committed to their partner(s). In fact, I think as a writer I'm getting soppier. This is odd, since I'd rather sit in a bath of cold baked beans than watch a romantic movie. Unless it's Dirty Dancing. 

I've started to explore what's going on in people's brains more than what they've got in their toy boxes. Charlotte Stein's style springs to mind here. She manages to explore power dynamics without so much as a mention of handcuffs. Well, not often anyway. No props, just people and their crazy, complicated mind-body connections. And it's so damn hot.