Before I get into the subject of a newsletter, I wanted to share a link to a post and my comment in response to Jen’s post about vulnerability, in which she talks about respect vs love.
This is my comment as written:
I find the link between work and home interesting, so I’m going to take a tangent here.
You might think, “how hard can it be to order your wife to lick the asshole of his girlfriend?” = Brown nosing. Been in plenty of workplaces where the common theme is “How did he/she get that position?” Well, it comes from being submissive to the boss(es) and licking and sucking up to get the job. It’s not a healthy situation for anyone, but a reality I have witnessed all too often. This leads to people in leadership positions that shouldn’t be there, and who use fear and intimidation to force false submission.“It ties into something I read somewhere that, if given a choice between respect or love, most men choose respect and most women choose love.” Respect is the most difficult thing to both give and earn, not only in a personal relationship, but in the workplace. The entire concept of employment by others is a type of D/s relationship. The boss gives the orders, and the employees are expected to obey. Without respect, those orders are often ignored, sabotaged or otherwise mangled so that the boss looks bad. It’s not surprising that Mike has become more dominant at work based on his home life.
The idea of love in the workplace should not be confused with romantic love: [See below] but with the concept of affection towards co-workers and even bosses. A platonic friendship must include love and respect to have any chance of being real.
Although there are many parallels between D/D and D/s at home, and the corporate management tree, the sexual aspect gets all tangled up with power and authority. It doesn’t take much thought to recall sexual scandals in the workplace, at church, in schools and in politics, to realize that respect and love can be quickly corrupted by stupidity and cruelty.
Which leads into the last observation: Vulnerability. In the workplace, the employee has no power, except to quit if the boss is an asshole. Unlike D/s however, it’s easier to find another job, than another Dom or life partner. People write all the time about abusive Doms, but rarely complain about abusive bosses. Why? Because employees are vulnerable. HR either doesn’t care, or does not have the power to enforce harassment laws. It’s safer to accept a paycheck, than hope for a favorable court judgement. For those not in a D/s relationship, the submissive may seem to be powerless, but anyone reading this blog, or many others, quickly realizes that it is not the case.
The transition from hard-shelled, numb employee, to open vulnerable submissive, is a junction fraught with danger. I feel many D/s relationships founder on this very shoal for the lack of love and respect for the process of communicating in an honest and vulnerable manner.
About a newsletter, I have noticed that authors offer newsletters on their websites. I only have the two Lust anthologies published at the moment, but have several novels and short stories either finished, or working. There would be several possible items to include in a newsletter:
1. WIP: Work in progress, not whipping you deviant perverts! Although, all of my WIP has spanking of some sort. The purpose of showcasing my WIP, would be to garner feedback and beta reads before submitting for either calls or publication.
2. General talk about spanking and D/s, in line with the discussion above. I don’t blog many essays here, because I normally utilize other bloggers’ posts to write comments. There is certainly a need for sane and safe discussion rather than more fiction.
3. Write book reviews about my personal favorites. I have calculated—conservatively—that I have read over 20,000 books and an equal number of magazines and newspapers in my life. I have many books, new and old, that I consider worth reading.
4. Write about my writing process. How do I create characters? Why do I choose the place and time? How often do I write? Why does all my fiction revolve around spanking? [If you have to ask…]
5. Go in depth into the Lust novellas. Talk about how the outline grew into 24,000 words, and how the beta editing process changed the stories.
6. Discuss how BDSM and spanking has crept into mainstream romance. Did you know that almost all best-selling romance is now sexually explicit, and at the very least, mentions spankings as a threat directed at the female lead? Is this the influence of the editors? The paddle wagging the bottom? Or are readers more interested in kink than ever before?
So, in a comment or email, would you be interested in a monthly newsletter from me? You’d not be wrong in thinking I could simply start another blog, but, in the past, I got carried away and had eight blogs at one time. Not to mention, having 30 days of posts pre-written. I’m envisioning a once-monthly newsletter that builds upon my writing here, by discussing items such as the above.
