A little Google irony

I made up the title of a book for a story I've just finished. The imaginary book's going to be called Female Dominance and the Men Who Crave It. A bit long-winded, I know, but it does what it says on the tin, so to speak. I thought I'd better Google it. Incidentally, the real book that was my inspiration was The Art of Sensual Female Dominance by Claudia Varrin. 

So what did I find? Top results:

The power of a woman's submissiveness
How women really feel about male dominance
Women prefer dominant men. You don't say!
Women who crave domination and rough sex
Do you prefer submissive or dominant women (in bed)?
Do most women want to be sexually dominated?
How to dominate a woman in bed
5 ways to dominate your guy in bed
My 'how to' guide for men on how to dominate a woman in bed
Do women really want 50 shades of grey?

Now I realise Google doesn't understand the order in which I placed the words female and dominance and men. I just needed to know there was no real book with that precise title. And this isn't any kind of moral statement or debate of feminist politics; I write femsub stories too. I was simply struck by the irony. By the one-sidedness of the results. Which seems to mirror the one-sidedness of a market flooded with erotica and erotic romance with the same formula - boy meets girl, boy shows girl who's boss, girl initially resists, before finally realising it's what she wants. Deep down. You know, in some part of herself she never knew existed. Because she needed him to show her her true self. Hmm. 

It reminded me of a tweet I saw from Rachel Kramer Bussel recently - who's accepted a few of my stories for anthologies she's editing for Cleis :-). She wrote: "My female fantasy anthology got hardly any femdom submissions. Feels like niche market compared to popularity of female submission." and "I aim for variety in my books, but I also want to cater to what book buyers want to read."

So, there's a huge debate to be had about what readers want and what publishers give them. But the simpler point from all this for me as a writer sending off stories to anthology calls is that a femsub story is going to have to really stand out from the crowd and that there's a need for more decent femdom stories.

I'm off to read 5 ways to dominate your guy in bed...