Fetishism, shamanism?

I’ve seen and read a few things and had some conversations about fetish that sparked a line of thought.

There’s a sense of ‘fetish’ that refers to ‘the attribution of inherent value or powers to an object’. Interacting with the object, using it in some ritualistic way, enables you to communicate with a world beyond the immediate and everyday - the spirit world, a deeper level of consciousness, however you might like to model it. In that sense, do our fetishes enable us to communicate with or enter into a world that is not part of ordinary reality?

Notwithstanding the somewhat simplistic description of shamanism you'll find on Wikipedia, shamanism is similarly about communication with a world outside our normal experience - a world that is often entered through the use of powerful symbolic operators such as fetishes, objects attributed with the power I've destcribed above. OK, there's often ritual, physical exertion such as dance, and drugs too - but these are all means to a similar end. Are we all, in some small way, shamans now?

Women and transvestites probably know more about this than men. Eyeliner, lipstick, blusher and well-cut fabric have an almost ceremonial purpose. Put on your makeup, change into a favourite dress and heels, and by changing your appearance you become almost literally a different person.

Pagans know about this. Go to a pagan camp and people you normally see in jeans and T-shirts are striding around in capes, carrying a staff and with an atheme on their belt. At one level it looks rather like medieval re-enactment, but whatever people are, or aren’t, wearing (there may be a certain amount of skyclad-ness) it’s meaningful to them as a symbol of identity and something that helps them connect with whatever energies or aspects of personality of belief they want to connect with.

Probably police officers, nurses and priests know about it as well – put the uniform on and you become the kind of person the uniform symbolises, not least because it influences how others interact with you.

Fetishists know about this. Don your leathers, your PVC and latex, and you can almost feel your personality changing as the second skin covers you. They are symbols, conduits connecting you to a sexual identity outside your everyday persona. Do you become more essential? More vital? Feel a link to something that empowers you? In its own way, fetishism can be a shamanic experience.

Announcement imminent!

Some of you may have come across this short story on my 'other' blog, which has been reposted here and here.

The fun thing, really, is this. I wrote the stories, then wrote the intro in which I put myself as a character, and then wrote essentially the same story as a kind of semi-promotional piece from a different point of view in which the first person narrative was by the book's main character, with me and the publisher's editor as the other characters in it. Maybe. It could be that the protagonist is real and I'm the fictional one... You'll have to decide. How very poststructuralist and pretentiously literary of 'me'. Or of someone, anyway.

I was going to wait until the thing's actually out before doing a big announcement. In fact I still will - so this is only a pre-announcement and I'll have more to say in a couple of days' time.

Emails have been flying back and forth today sorting out the cover...

Do you really want to be 'Master'?

Go on many bdsm-related social networking sites and chatrooms, and you'll find guys there who call themselves 'Master' So-and-so. I've never been convinced that a dominant should give themselves that title: I've always seen it as something others give.

I don't think I'm alone in this.

I know a sub who's often online in chatrooms and chatted up by men whose online names are 'Master' something or other. Her usual line is to ask politely on what basis they call themselves 'Master'.

This can lead to quite long exchanges in which she establishes they have no MA or MSc qualification; are not a master in a vocational sense (e.g. master baker, which is a recognised title), and are not recognised within their bdsm community as being a 'bondage master' or whatever.

She then points out that the other use of the term 'master' is an honorific title for young boys who have not yet reached the age at which they can be called 'mister' - and asks whether, in that case, they'd still like her to call them 'master'...

Personally I've always preferred to hear 'Ouch!' and 'You bastard!' rather than 'Please Master!' but maybe that's just me.

(Sorry about the lack of posts, I've been away for a few days but normal service is now resumed.)

Lenny Bruce, comedian and general bad boy

I've been ill recently and spent some of the time re-reading some old Lenny Bruce stuff on my bookshelves. For those who don't know, Lenny Bruce (Leonard Alfred Schneider, 1925-1966) was an American comic who started working as an MC in strip clubs, doing comic turns between the girls. His sharp sense of hypocrisy and injustice in American society worked into his act and often made him a target for law enforcement, including a couple of obscenity trials.

Notable Lenny Bruce quotes:

“I’ve been accused of bad taste, and I’ll go down to my grave accused of it and always by the same people, the ones who eat in restaurants that reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”

“The kind of sickness I wish Time had written about, is that school teachers in Oklahoma get a top annual salary of $4000, while Sammy David, Jr. gets $10,000 a week in Vegas.”

“If something about the human body disgusts you complain to the manufacturer.”

“If a titty is pretty, it’s dirty but not if it’s bloody and maimed.”

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”

“I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like: What I’m going to be if I grow up.”

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. “

If you're interested there's an official Lenny Bruce website maintained by his daughter Kitty.

Bruce was a bad boy. He was, for example, a long-time drug user and his death was due to accidental overdosing on morphine. But he was a bad boy in many other respects as well. Here's the sexy bit I rediscovered in his biography: it comes from early in his career, when he was MCing for stripper's at Duffy's club in Los Angeles. Philly Joe, a drummer in the club band, hears Lenny's voice in his ear. 'When you finish this set come straight back in the dressing room - and have your cock out!' And then...

'...when the last ker-plunk had sounded from his drums, he'd be advancing on the dressing room with his fly unzipped. Whipping out his schlong, he'd stand breathless before the maroon drapes. Then he'd enter the dressing room in precisely the condition Lenny desired. There before him is a sight to make a man ship over. A big naked stripper is kneeling in the middle of the floor, a bandage over her eyes, her hands bound behind her back, her mouth wide open waiting to receive the first cock that comes through the door. As Philly Joe, now a robot man, dips his wick, he hears Lenny giggling hysterically in the closet.'

From Ladies and Gentlemen - Lenny Bruce! The Ultimate Biography. Albert Goldman with Lawrence Schiller. Pan Books, 1976 - pages 166-7.

I'll maybe post a couple of other bits in a day or two...

Happy New Year to everyone (and some self-congratulation!)

This is a self-congratulatory post and I'm not going to apologise for it! I've been doing some end-of-year sorting and filing, as a result of which I've just noticed that in the course of 2010 I've published, in terms of erotica -

- 14 short stories in magazines/collections/anthologies: 6 with Xcite, 6 in Erotic Review, 1 in Oysters & Chocolate, 1 in Lucrezia magazine
- 3 short stories published individually, all with Xcite
- 3 stories on other people's blogs (Frequently Felt)
- My first full-length erotic novel (with Pink Flamingo)
- a bunch of stories out on my new 'other' blog which I've set up jointly with Velvet Tripp, deliciouslydeviant.wordpress.com

That's in addition to several short science fiction and horror stories published under my real name.

Stuff in progress at the moment includes a single-author erotic story collection and a second novel, with a second story collection and a third novel being planned... I haven't set myself any New Year resolutions about getting things finished, but hopefully most if not all of that stuff will appear in the course of 2011.

Meanwhile, congratulations also to the authors whose blogs appear in the links on the right of this page, who've all put out excellent stuff this year, sometimes in the face of quite serious difficulties. And a happy New Year to everyone.

Things a sub doesn't want to hear...

... when they're tied and blindfolded.

#19 I don’t know what I’m going to do to you yet. I’m going to let the viewers on my webcam decide…

#26 Oh good, the power drill’s fully charged now!

#38 Did I ever tell you the fantasy I have? The one that involves a frozen chicken?

#44 I’ve been much better since I had the treatment. No I haven’t. Yes I have. Shut up, all of you!

#589 I haven’t tried this before, I’m just curious to see if it works.

I posted a few more over at Deliciously Deviant as well...Have fun!

New story out from 17th Dec at Oysters and Chocolate

Just a quick announcement that Fulani's short story "Relieving the Stress" will go live on Oysters and Chocolate online magazine this Friday, December 17th. So it's a free read, probably in their "Liquorice Whips" story category (aka sensual BDSM).

Enjoy!

New stuff

Two new things to report.

First: story out in a new Xcite anthology. The Cocktales e-book series, book is Kiss in the Dark and my story is 'Zen and the Art of Bondage'.

Blurb - When is an orgasm a work of art? When it’s the result of Japanese bondage, of course! Miranda works in a bookshop and when one of her customers keeps buying books on Japanese culture, she quizzes him about his interest. This takes her on a journey from ikebana, Japanese flower arranging, all the way to shibari, Japanese bondage. She discovers the best sex toy you can have is a length of rope...

Obviously I kind of prefer my story but seriously, I'd recommend them all.

As always, using the affiliate link at the side of this page (and buying stuff, whether it's mine or not) puts some fractions of a penny in my bank account.

Second: my first NOVEL is out, published by Pink Flamingoin the US. Title is The Secret Circus of Pain and Degradation - print and ebook versions.

Blurb - “The Secret Circus of Pain and Degradation, an entertainment for those with enquiring minds”… Amy and Paula, living in a small and small-minded town, are too curious to stay away. But when the ringmaster displays his talent for hypnotism, they discover that what they’d always wanted to do was run away and join a circus.
They are inducted as professional, performing submissives into the S&M world of the circus folk, including being made available for discreet private functions. They experience the depths, and ecstacies, of decadence and depravity.
Ultimately Paula is captured by a mad private client; Amy mobilizes the circus to save her.
Meanwhile, the traveling circus is planning an offshoot—a circus-like fetish club. Amy and Paula, now fully inducted into a fetish lifestyle, become its managers as well as star performers.

Have fun! I'm just about to start the next novel...

That's a first

It's Bank Holiday Monday, so I wasn't expecting any serious email. But I got one and it's made my day. Not one, but two, stories accepted by Xcite - one on a theme of 'Not Safe For Work' (sort of) and one a vampire story. I'll post more details of when they're being published in due course.

Sex Art and Aromatherapy

Just to say I have a new short ebook (just a 5000 word thing) out on Xcite.

The synopsis goes like this: 'Ruby is looking for something that will take her beyond her humdrum life. She’s already experienced and enjoyed BDSM and fetish, and she’s surprised to meet an older man in an art gallery, of all places, who seems to be very experienced in that world. He tells her stories about how, in his youth, BDSM was simply one part of a wider and more spiritual quest. Ruby sets off on a journey to discover some enlightenment of her own…'

I think I mentioned the story before when I was writing it, but as a content warning I'd say: mild references to political economy, psychology and anthopology!

As always, if you use the affiliate link on the right (and buy stuff) you'll be putting a couple of pennies in my bank account, thank you!

I'm still on the personal quest thing from previous posts - I'll have more stuff to say about films and books and things in the next few days.

Feeling my age!

I was at Dominion, my local fetish event, last night (Dominion, if you're interested).

You know you're old when you go to a club and the following things happen.

1. You spend much of your time with others of a similar age, reminiscing about the fetish clubs you went to 15 or 20 years ago and what the people who ran those clubs then are doing now they're retired. Which in one case, apparently was move to Spain, live a quiet life, get bored, and return to the UK to take over a swingers' club.

2. Your friends are their with their children, who are now in their mid-20s and already well-versed in the fetish scene in their own right.

It was a good night though, fairly busy, lots of play even from quite early in the event and friendly as always with a good mix of people in terms of style, age, and kink.