Dear Editor,
I was really pleased to see someone writing about how horrible these books are and how they’re more of a How to Be Abusive For Dummies guide than anything else. However, as a mentor in the BDSM community I think the criticism falls a bit short. I will be the first to admit that there are problematic aspects in the BDSM community (in fact I operate a blog about it), but to state that this is what BDSM is really misrepresents what it is supposed to be. Ask most kinky people about the books and you are likely to hear a hour long diatribe about everything wrong with the books, and with good reason. Christian doesn’t represent Risk Aware Consensual Kink or Safe Sane, and Consensual, which are both guidelines we are trying to instill in our community in order to protect ourselves and each other from the predators that Christian represents. Nor does Anastasia represent the strong feminist women I know in the community who would kick Christian out the door in a heartbeat, submissive or not. One thing I am glad for is the books are opening discussion about a rather taboo subject, I just wish they weren’t guides on what NOT to do.
-Feminist Femdom
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