Monday, December 29, 2014

Always the Quiet Ones by Amy Valenti


Dommes – Are They All Bitches?

How many romance stories with a sexual BDSM relationship between two women have you read?

For probably about ninety percent of the people reading this, the answer will be ‘none’. That’s fair enough – it’s a pretty niche interest that people don’t really seek out unless they’re into BDSM and women. Since most of the people reading romances are straight women, it makes sense that there are way more straight couple or gay male stories out there.

I like to try to read and write a little bit of everything, and two of the characters in
Always the Quiet Ones, my M/F/F short story, are women. One’s a Domme, the other a submissive, and although there is a male Dom in the story as well, this particular blog is about the F/F dynamic.

I’ve heard a few people say that Dommes come across as bitchy, and that they don’t like to read about characters like that. Male Doms, on the other hand, are seen as stern, which is a lot more desirable.

It seems to me that bitchy Dommes are more of a submissive male fantasy than a female one, and that sneering, derogatory element ties into male subs’ wishes to be humiliated and for their power in patriarchal society to be stripped away. I’m sure this is far from the case for every submissive man, and that some submissive women love to be bitched at and made to lick their Mistress’ boots, but that’s never done it for me personally.

I’m not particularly fond of bitchy characters in general, and I don’t find them at all attractive. When writing Dana, my Domme character, I tried not to let her become the standard Dominatrix archetype, hoping to make her a little warmer without losing her business-like, authoritative edge – the kind of Domme I’ve found most compelling in real life. I guess you’ll have to judge for yourself whether I succeeded!

Female subs are a lot more common in romance than female dominants, from the bratty ones who are disrespectful in hopes of ‘punishment’ – that’s fun punishment, in case that’s a new term for you! – to the obedient ones who take their submission extremely seriously at all times. The submissive character in Always the Quiet Ones, Nicola, is very well behaved in this story, but she’s also pretty overwhelmed by what’s happening. After all, it’s not every day you agree to a casual scene with a female friend, then find out she’s brought along the guy you’re not-so-secretly in love with to enhance the bondage and whippy fun!

I get the feeling Nic would be a little less obedient as time went on, but for the duration of this story, she’s happy to go along for the ride and enjoy what her dominants have planned for her. That makes Dana’s job as Domme a lot easier, which probably helped me cut out the bitchiness. As a result, the emotional dynamic between them is probably more of an owner-and-pet one, with genuine friendship and attraction between them when they’re not in play.

So if the bitchiness of movie and TV Dommes has been putting you off reading any female dominance stories, try some F/F (or M/F/F if you really need some male Dom in your reads too). You might find it’s less jarring than you expect!


One man—two women. Two Dominants—one submissive. Three hearts about to collide…

Lee rubs me up the wrong way, but he’s sexier than sin. He and our mutual friend Nicola have been pretending they don’t want each other the entire time I’ve known them, but every time I drool over Nicola, Lee gets all territorial. I’m guessing he’s just as much of a Dom as she is a submissive.

As far as I can see, there’s only one solution to this problem—we share Nic. Just for one night of amazing BDSM bliss, to make them realise they belong together. Then I can back off and leave them to their happily-ever-after before Lee tries to make me kneel before him too. I don’t submit to anybody.

Okay, so I don’t get much out of this deal in the long run, but that’s okay. I’m not looking for a permanent relationship anyway, especially not with two people. Even if one of them is the sweetest bisexual sub I’ve ever met and the other makes me want to fight him for the top spot and then ride him all night long…

Like the sound of Always the Quiet Ones? Buy it here.

Amy Valenti attained ‘crazy cat lady’ status at four years old, but took a little longer to get to the ‘published author’ stage, which was her other goal in life. Now in her late twenties, she tries to minimise the number of cats she puts into her erotic romance stories, but more than one has slipped into a character’s home while her back’s been turned. After all, the ultimate test of a man’s worth is what his new partner’s pets think of him…

Cats aside, Amy enjoys writing about intelligent female characters who know themselves and their desires. She’s been fascinated by sex, relationship and power-play dynamics for many years, and experiments with different sub-genres under the overarching category of BDSM, concentrating on Domination and submission romance in particular.

You can check out more from Amy Valenti at http://amyvalenti.com,
sign up to her mailing list or find her on Facebook or Twitter.




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