The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2 – New Anthology Release

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Adrea Kore, Anthology Release, authenticity in writing, BDSM, conscious sexuality, Desire, erotic fiction, erotica, Female Sexuality, Kinks, multiple orgasms, rope, sexuality, Shibari, The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2

Kink. It’s an interesting word, in terms of its etymology.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, defines it quite thoroughly:

1: a short tight twist or curl caused by a doubling or winding of something upon itself

2a : a mental or physical peculiarity : eccentricity, quirk

b : whim

3: a clever or unusual way of doing something

4: a cramp in some part of the body

5: an imperfection likely to cause difficulties in the operation of something

6: unconventional sexual taste or behavior

 

I’m thrilled and honoured to have my story “Roped In” selected to feature in The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2, published by Cleis Press and edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

The overarching kink explored in this anthology is, as the title suggests, the act of submission. Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel asserts in the Introduction that there are “so many ways to be submissive” and these stories artfully reveal that the spectrum of submissive scenarios, desires, and behaviours are as broad, creative and as varied as human sexuality itself.

The anthology boasts an array of stories that delve not just into the heat and eroticism of the physical sex, but, just as importantly, the psyche, emotions and sensations of the submissive state, and the dynamics of the relationship(s) that make these experiences possible. These more complex layers, in many of the stories I’ve read so far, are executed with startling insight, imagery and intelligence.

To quote from a glowing 4.5 star review for The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2 by blogger Bitches n Prose:

“… some of the things you can expect in the way of kink: BDSM (obviously), bondage, rope, training, power struggles, pet play, spanking, a host of different toys, affairs, pegging, role play, blades, gender play, tickling, different time periods, accents/language, food, and strangers. There’s bound (pun intended) to be something on this list that sets off your fires.”

As I’ve just begun reading the stories in my glossy, newly received author copy, I’ve been reflecting on these various meanings of the word “kink”, and how they can all apply to the concept of sexual kink: in physical, psychological, emotional and cultural terms. For example, there are depictions of the mental state of submissive desire akin to (1) “a short tight twist or curl caused by a … winding of something upon itself” in stories such as Sommer Marsden’s “Lightning Strike” and Anna Sky’s “Imago”; a twist that is only released when the desire is indulged or allowed.

Many stories expound on the emotional and psychological aspects of submission as (2) “a mental or physical peculiarity : eccentricity or quirk”, such as the eroticizing of shame in Jo Henny Wolf’s “Words” and the exhilaration that is felt when it is witnessed and accepted (or punished) by their Dominant partner. These quirks and peculiarities become portals to the submissive’s pleasure. As for “whims”, these are indulged aplenty; by following an erotic whim, many a story is born.

“A clever or unusual way of doing something”(3): If that “something” is sex, foreplay, the art of arousing another … then this definition is well and truly covered by the anthology as a whole.

Many of the characters experience their submissive needs for pain, humiliation, or domination, when unfulfilled, as physical pain, akin to “a cramp in some part of the body.” The story often unfolds around easing that cramp, releasing that tension.

For some people, knowing you have certain “kinks” can make them feel like they have a secret they have to hide, or that they themselves are (5) “an imperfection likely to cause difficulties in the operation of something”. By “something”, read conventional society. Many workplace cultures. Conservative families. Anthologies like The Big Book of Submission create vital, permissive spaces for the exploration of alternative pleasures. And kinks.

As a sexual being, I’ve known I was into restraint for a long time. If I could pinpoint the first moment, it would be when I was 20 and my first serious boyfriend, a blacksmith and blues singer, tied me up in the four-poster iron bed he’d designed and made himself. Two decades my senior, he made very effective use of those four bedposts. The foreplay and the sex was electrifying, and I suppose (however unconsciously) it was then I discovered that a little restraint in the sex-play magnified both the intensity of my orgasms and the number of them.

One could say it was natural progression that I went on to blindfolding my next boyfriend, stripping him and tying him, limbs splayed, to my big kitchen table, before having my way with him. Ahem. Enough self-revelation.

These two experiences are way back in my past, before I’d ever heard of the terms “kinky” or BDSM. I was just exploratory and creative and enjoyed finding ways to enhance sensations or sensory experience – for myself and others. I say this to simply point out that even if you don’t identify as “kinky” or of alternate sexuality, you’re likely to find plenty to enjoy in this anthology.

So maybe my own brand of kink is version (3): “a clever or unusual way of doing something.”

I’ve written before that I don’t really relate to the terms “Dominant” or “submissive”, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t explored and embodied both states, in my life and on the page. Nor does it mean I can’t engage with stories employing this framework.

What I’m enjoying in these stories is that each author is defining what it means to be submissive for themselves, and through their characters. And I think this is one of the strengths of this anthology – all the more apparent because of the intent and vision of the editor, Rachel Kramer Bussel. Assembled together, the stories truly showcase the diversity of submissive experiences. And in reading them, it’s like wandering through a kink club, and being able to magically slip into the skin and sensations of many different bodies /genders in different scenes throughout the various spaces.

More recently, I’ve had a few experiences with the intricate and erotic art of Shibari (erotic rope bondage). I’ve been a rope model, as well as exploring using rope in a sexuality workshop. As a writer, I wanted to explore elements of the practice of Shibari and some of the seemingly indescribable kinesthetic reactions I’ve had to being bound. As my character Yasmin says, it felt “beyond words”: the writer in me wanted to find the words.

Much of the action of “Roped In” takes place in a sexuality workshop. For several years, a lot of my sexual growth and exploration took place in these kinds of workshops, as I was studying to be a Tantric sex practitioner. In fact, some of my peak orgasmic and sexual experiences happened in these groups. I wanted to “demystify” some elements of the sex-positive lifestyle by setting the story in a similar kind of workshop space. These spaces are where I learnt and experienced so much about my sexuality and sexual relating; I hoped to show my characters learning skills they could use to enrich their own relationship.

Below is a little preview to “Roped In” – from the opening:

I thought I knew what rope felt like. Hard, salt-roughed rope that rigged a sail. The chafe of hessian rope against thigh on a make-shift swing. And knots? Practical things. Functional elements that kept your shoes on.

But this; this seductive slither of an embrace, trailing around my neck, snaking over and around both arms, encircling my waist like a possessive lover, this, I am not prepared for.

He hasn’t even tied a knot yet.

You wanted me here. Wanted to experience more (how did you put it?) elaborate possibilities than tying my wrists to the headboard.

 

*  *  *

So, discerning reader, whether your “kinkiness” is something you explore solely on the page, or whether you dip your toes in occasionally to kinky waters, or whether you’re the 24/7 kind of kinkster, you’re sure to find stories that intrigue, arouse, and galvanize you between these pages.

A huge “Congratulations” to all 69 authors! And thanks to publisher Cleis Press and to editor Rachel Kramer Bussel for making this anthology possible.

UPDATE: I’m so excited by the news that New York’s Publisher’s Weekly has reviewed the anthology very favourably, and that my story merited a mention, alongside authors Zodian Gray, Angela R. Sargenti, Dr J, Anna Sky and Giselle Renarde. You can read the review below.

The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2 – 69 Kinky Tales

So Many Ways to be Submissive …

(Available in E-Book or Paperback – Click on the Image to go straight to Amazon, or other buy-links below)

 

Nook

Google Play

Audio Book available soon via Audible

Read the Reviews

Chrissi Sepe

Bitches n Prose

Publisher’s Weekly

 

Read More by the Editor

 

 

 

Reflections in a Pixelated Pool

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Adrea Kore, authenticity in writing, erotic fiction, erotic poetry, erotica, Greek Mythology, On Writing, Wet Satin Plaything

A few days ago, Kore Desires turned one.

Before I began this blog, I knew virtually (pardon the pun) nothing about blogging.  I rarely read blogs, had no clue about to set one up myself, or even how to create the avatar needed to allow you to comment on other’s blogs. I had only written two rather epic, rambling guest posts (under my real name), which I may well cringe at if I read them now.

Reaching the first anniversary of my blog caused me to reflect on the challenges of this year, and think about what I might have achieved and learned.

One year on, and I’ve met and connected with many other wonderful writers online, and have found in the sex and erotica blogging world what proved to be both expensive and elusive in the realm of my old-school tendencies ie – seeking knowledge and literary inspiration primarily through books. In this new-to-me realm, I discovered what I had long been hungering for – contemporary thinking and writing on sexuality – both fiction and non-fiction. Intelligent, provocative, diverse, creative and relevant – these writers are also in some way my contemporaries and peers – my stories sit beside theirs in published anthologies. This writing keeps me thinking, engaged, wrestling with ideas. The ongoing conversations between blogs and forums keeps me tuned like a cello, listening for my own chords, my own music. The exchange hurries me to the page at times, and has given me a sense of belonging in a like-minded, yet diverse, community.

Thirty-two posts on and counting, (plus a few guest posts), I’ve learnt quite a bit about this hybrid twenty-first century communication form, the blog.  It’s my observation that the form of a blog lies somewhere in the overlap between a journalistic article, an essay, a journal entry and a good conversation.  Depending on your voice, what you want to say, and who you want to appeal to, one borrows the shape of one or more of these four forms in differing intensities.

At times, blogging strikes me as a strange paradox. It’s like being in a private, quiet room, whispering thoughts to oneself – yet it’s also a room you share publicly, with readers you may know, but many who you don’t. Right now, I write within the illusion of solitude, yet at the back of my mind are the expectant rustlings and sighs of a would-be audience.  A blog is not a journal.  Anyone who claims they are the same has not kept a private journal. The mind’s focus is entirely different.

Sometimes, I feel decadent having a room all of my own here. A room, a kingdom… A domain. (I just bought mine – adreakore.com is coming soon!) I grapple with the narcissistic connotations of a blog, along with the subtle but present pressure to create and maintain a consumable, desirable image. I’m deconstructing this image right now by typing that last sentence, these words right now. But, you see, I will reveal, but only what I choose to. I will also conceal, and you the reader will not know what I conceal. Absences are enigmatic in that way…

The title of this blog came to me because I was thinking about the myth of Narcissus, the beautiful but vain youth who falls for his own reflection in a pond; about how seductive it is to remain gazing at one’s own (self-created) reflection, albeit a pixelated likeness in the greater online pond.

pixel

ˈpɪks(ə)l,-sɛl/

noun

ELECTRONICS

noun: pixel; plural noun: pixels

1. a minute area of illumination on a display screen, one of many from which an image is composed.

   “the camera scans photographs and encodes the image into pixels”

Origin

ENGLISH

1960s: abbreviation of picture element .

This might be a somewhat macabre metaphor for a blog, but I do think it’s apt in its reminder that we be wary not to fall for our own online reflection, lest we waste away and forget our real-life selves, like Narcissus.

“Narcissus” – by Caravaggio

As I’ve written elsewhere, the first two-thirds of this year had been arid creatively. Much of that has been due to the emotional impact of a relationship ending, the ensuing grief and confusion, and then the energy it’s taken to slowly reassemble the pieces of myself. I have been flung against the jagged edges of my own emotional limits. I experienced deep love, then the severing of that love, in what turned out to be an impossible situation.  It didn’t break my heart – it lacerated it, and also shattered parts of my identity. For several months, it was difficult to feel anything except despondency, failure and pain. I have learnt much about the conflicting impulses of my open, curious mind, and my more fragile emotional needs, and that for me, respecting my emotional well-being is paramount. Someday perhaps I’ll have the courage to write openly about it.

Although I couldn’t bare to write fiction, my critical faculties, suspended for a time in limbo with my emotions, flared back to life.  Some days, I think my intellect may have saved me from the seemingly endless spiralling of my darker emotions. I took hold of ideas and in responding to them intellectually, pulled myself out of that limbo. I discovered I still cared about what I thought about sexuality, and our culture’s responses to that. And for that stretch towards vitality again, I particularly want to acknowledge the inquiring minds and intellectual passion of Remittance Girl, Emmanuelle deMaupassant and Malin James. Thankyou. ❤

So, after several painful endings, and my time in a kind of torpor, some things are finally shifting.

Through this dark time, paradoxically I discovered something I love doing which allows me to assist and work with other writers – structural / developmental editing. After so many years interpreting play-texts as a theatre director, I believe I’ve developed a skill for sensing the spine of a story, for assisting the author to bring out its themes and nuances, and for hearing a writer’s voice, and seeing what might be getting in the way of the full expression of that voice. I have my first client for a significant project, a deeply imaginative writer, with whom I’m delighted to be working. I hope to attract more of this kind of work in the future.

And if you’ve read some of my recent posts, you’ll know I recently broke my drought of creative writing with a flood of story – my longest piece yet – Wet Satin Plaything.  I wrote it for a Submission call for House of Erotica, and I’m excited to announce that it’s been accepted. It will appear, along with stories from six other authors in an antholology called Licked – release date to be confirmed soon. (If you’d like a little preview, go to the end of this article).

I’ve also just found out I’ve had several of my erotic poems accepted into Coming Together, the well-known erotica-for-charity anthology. Erotic poetry antholologies are released far less frequently than story antholologies, so consider adding it to your collection. Edited by the prolific Ashley R Lister, proceeds for Coming Together: In Verse will go to domestic animal rescue organization Hope for Paws. I’m very happy that my poems can assist animals in need.

With at least some parts of myself reclaimed, I have newfound determination for several drafted future projects. And now, when I look at my reflection, maybe, just maybe, it’s becoming clearer …

So … wish me Happy Birthday … and many more to come…

Wanna slip into a little Wet Satin? Right this way, please …

For a sneak preview of one of the poems to be featured in Coming Together in Verse, come with me …

If anyone is interested in my services as a structural / developmental editor, drop me a line here.

And here’s where you can connect with the creative minds of Remittance Girl, Emmanuelle deMaupassant and Malin James. 

Beyond the Terror of the Blank Page

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Adrea Kore, authenticity in writing, Creative Process, erotic fiction

It is after midnight here, and I’ve been working on my latest story Wet Satin Plaything for seven hours straight today.

But I finished it.

I finished it by “patiently meting out words on a page” at times today, and also by writing in a fever-fits of inspiration, deep inside the feelings and sensations that were happening to my characters, actually aroused at times by what I was writing. Sometimes I kept writing by swapping to my notepad, and making plot notes in my scratchy southpaw handwriting – with little swirls as bullet points, when I seemed to have run out of sentences for what was happening.

Other times, I kept writing by not writing, and cooking instead. Knowing my mind was turning over the stones which the unwritten parts of the story lay hidden under while I chopped and stirred.

And I got the submission in (I hope, given time zone differences) just in time. We shall see. I’ve never shaved a story submission deadline that closely before. It was literally the stroke of midnight when I hit “send”.

So it seems, as I was exploring in On Not Writing, reasoning with my perfectionist about being strong enough to weather negative or unexpected reactions actually worked. In addition, I created a strong, provocative piece of fiction out of a dysfunctional past relationship with some pretty emotionally damaging aspects. I allowed myself to explore my feelings of anger about being emotionally controlled, and verbally abused, and that felt powerful. I got to step inside the skin of a femme fatale-type character who doesn’t fear the dramatic gesture to make a strong statement about her boundaries, and to reclaim her power.

This is a short post, but an important one, to honour my progress.

I did what I set out to do. I didn’t give up, or distract myself (too much) telling myself my intention didn’t really “matter”. I followed the thread of the story, trusting in its strength, and I sought some support from writer-friends from the sidelines. Thanks to writer Jacqui Greaves for reading my draft-in-progress and providing feedback.

And I can now say, in comparison to when I last posted On Not Writing, when I confessed I hadn’t completed anything fictional for one whole year, that I’ve changed my own narrative.

There’s power in completions. Unfinished stories have a habit of haunting a writer, whereas completions are cleansing to the soul/soil, leaving room for new blossomings.

At twelve pages, and just over 6000 words, Wet Satin Plaything is now my longest narrative effort, more than three times longer than my last completed story Under My Cape. I’ve blasted through a block I had about only being able to sustain much shorter story narratives. I’d like to think that I am slowly developing my story-telling “muscle”, my stamina for sustained, longer narratives, and that, in time, a novel won’t be beyond my reach.  I know some writers believe they are “only” short story writers, “only” novelists. Me? I hope I’m a work-in-progress when it comes to word-counts.

In the first twelve hours or so (sticking with the twelve theme),  I’d also included as part of this blog a sizeable excerpt from my new story. That’s why there are a couple of comments by readers on the actual story. But I’ve now deleted this, because I’m not sure about the story’s fate, and I want to make sure I don’t contravene any potential future publishing agreements.

I will, however. publish a smaller excerpt here. Do you want to go there?

Meanwhile, we keep writing, don’t we? Those of us who, like Ray Bradbury, cannot stay too long away from words.

“You grow ravenous. You run fevers. You know exhilarations. You can’t sleep at night, because your beast-creature ideas want out and turn you in your bed. It is a grand way to live.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

On Not Writing

Tags

authenticity in writing, Creative Process, femme fatales, Inner Critic, On Writing, Perfectionism, sexual relating, women and anger, Writer's Block, Writing Process

This is a piece of writing about not writing. Every writer experiences this in their own uniquely terrifying way. If we peered into the psyche of every writer, we’d see this amorphous chimera of a creature;  the tangled roots of the writer’s particular creative wounds, childhood patternings, beliefs around creativity, purpose, and work attached to the underside of its ravenous belly, feeding it toxic information that is then passed onto the suffering writer. The litany of  intricate causes and contributing factors in what is commonly known as “writer’s block” is extensive and exhaustive.

Sometimes, all a writer can do is write about not writing.

The curse of perfectionism  is a close cousin to addiction. Combine that with an aberrant condition that I call ” fear of lack of an idea”, and what you get is a challenging psychological bind for someone who loves writing as much as I do.

As a younger creative, I  too experienced it as a BLOCK; a monolith of total and utter nothingness. I would desparately want to write fiction, but my inner critic had strong opinions about the right  kind of ideas that constituted true creativity. Very often I would feel a kind of constriction, like someone had their hands around the very part of my mind where the ideas were attempting to flow out. Pen poised on the page, the sense of an imminent outpouring would be reduced to a laboured trickle of half-birthed sentences, scratched-out phrases and jeering blank space.

So I resorted to copious journal-writing. There, my inner critic couldn’t thwart me, and if I read back over them now, there are so many sections where my recurring themes and emerging style are apparent. For example, I have always written about the sexual experiences I was having at the time in my journals. And its connection to body image, relating, gender dynamics, and love.

As a younger writer/ theatre-maker, I chiselled patiently away at the block I seemed to have around taking my creative impulses seriously, and then cultivating sustained, loving attention to bring them into being. I had enough ‘successes” to challenge my Inner Critic. I doggedly did Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”, the blocked artist’s rite of passage.

Yes. Every damn list and arduous Morning Pages session, every painfully self-absorbed excavating-your-childhood  AGAIN exercise.

I had to cure myself of my memories of being a precociously bright child, who could create clever, pretty things three times as fast as anyone else my age, winning adult approval with seemingly no real effort on my part. My creativity process up until middle adolescence was like lighting a fire. It started with the spark of an idea, and with easily-found twigs and branches, very quickly flourished into a crackling, marshmallow-toasting fire.

Gather round. Look what I made.

Sometimes it even felt accidental. I did what I did, but I couldn’t really get the hang of how I was doing it before I was winning first prizes in short story and poetry competitions, and representing my primary school for an essay-wriitng competititon on some dull civic theme.

The problem was, I didn’t trust my own creative writing voice as a young adult, and I didn’t value or even see the subjects I wrote well about. I wanted a different kind of creative voice. I didn’t know what that sounded like exactly, but it alienated me from my own developing voice for many, many years. I also hid my creative writing in my theatre-work as an actor, director and publicist. I hid it in the writing of  short scripts, radio plays, monologues, programme notes, theatre press releases, theatre company manifestos, character exploration.

Now, most often, as a published fiction writer taking my writing seriously, there’s actually effort involved. (What?!) I can still fluke a 20-minute publishable flash fiction piece or a decent poem written over a coffee every now and then. But mostly, patience and effort are now involved. Experience has taught me over the last few years that when I tend to any of my ideas for a piece of creative writing, I generally get a creative outcome I’m satisfied with.

So, why, lately, have I regressed to an earlier phase of my creative development, and stopped trusting my ideas? Rather than taking them out for coffee, and listening to what they have to say, I’m circling them suspiciously, trying to glean information from them without getting too close, like an email one suspects might contain a destructive virus.

Why do I feel again the near-lethal grip of my perfectionistic persona around my ideas, throttling them as they attempt to express themselves on the page or the screen?