In writing about the Beauty books, specifically Lauren's remark that some parts of these works of fiction are fantasy while some parts she wouldn't mind acting out, dave says:

>>> Lauren, which parts are and aren't? I'd bet the choice each of us would make would be different, and would serve to illuminate who and what we are. <<<

I don't know about this last part, except in the sense that people with lots of BDSM experience are going to know pretty well which parts are realistic physically, emotionally, and mentally, but it sounds like an interesting experiment, so I'm willing to give it a try. Here are a few scenes from each book, and my take on them. To save ASCIIs, I'm not going to describe the scenes in detail, go read the books for the details.

Overall Comment:

The theme of nonconsensuality that runs through the Beauty series is extremely unrealistic, but it is there because it makes for great jerk-off material. Many subs love to fantasize about being abducted or kidnapped and sadistically tortured against their wills. Some people say that subs like this because it means they don't have to take any responsibility for their own sexuality, they don't have to consider themsleves a nasty, sexual being because all of this is being forced upon them against their wills. I think that this may be a part of it for _some_ subs, but for many of us there is a very real sexual thrill that comes from being overpowered, forced, captured. Fear of one's captors or hunters is sexual. Fear of the unknown is sexual.

Nonconsensuality of this sort (kidnapping, raping, sadistic use) is a delicious head trip, but one that is very difficult to realistically put into practice without someone getting badly hurt emotionally. The difficulty lies in a couple of areas: first of all, such an experience is never exactly like the S&M fiction that you read because you are almost never taken totally by surprise. Before someone does a nonconsensual kidnapping scene with you, you will have first expressed the desire for it to happen. And if the person you express this desire to is at all responsible, he or she will have had to have made certain that you are capable of handling such a scene without blowing an emotional fuse. So the element of total surprise, which is such a big part of the fictional accounts, is impossible to arrange.

Secondly, if you trust someone well enough either to ask for them to do this sort of scene with you, I don't see how (unless your top is a superb actor and/or can put you in a state of mental vulnerability that would cause you to believe anything) the fear element could ever play a very big role in such a scene. At the bottom of your heart, you know that your dominant is not really going to hurt you permanently, and this includes pushing your limits to such an extent that you freak out. You feel safe and so the scene isn't like a Beauty fantasy, where the captive never knows the extents to which her captor(s) will go.

The alternative exists, of couse, to arrange such a scene with someone you don't know very well, but that strikes me as an incredibly dangerous and stupid thing to do, becuase if you've made the least little error in judgement, you could wind up maimed, disfigured, limbs amputated, body covered in acid or blowtorch burns, dead, sexual organs cut off, or [insert your own horrible consequence here]. I personally don't know a way out of this paradox of making a nonconsensual fantasy real: if you know someone well enough, the edge is gone; if you don't know someone well enough, the risk is too high.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

1. "The Journey and Punishment at the Inn" (beginning on page 15)

Beauty is a novice sub--she's brand new to this stuff. If having her father see her nude and humiliated by the Prince hadn't already gotten to her, then surely being slung naked over the prince's shoulder like a curvy sack of potatoes, with her buttocks and pussy exposed to the men riding behind him would be enough to cause her her first emotional crisis. Often a novice sub will feel that such humiliating treatment means that the dominant doesn't care one bit about her or her feelings, and in fact, is trying to make her feel miserable by exaggerating all her bad physical features (if she has a body image problem) or treating her like a sex object, a thing (if she does't have a body image problem). Of course, he _is_ treating her like a sex object, but a common problem with novice subs, especically novice female subs, is that they perceive such treatment as horrible rather than exciting. Getting past the women's movement conditioning which says that a woman should _never_ be treated in a demeaning or dehumanizing way by men takes a lot of time, a lot of training, and considerable motivation on the sub's part. In either case, a real life sub would probably be feeling lonely, hurt, bewildered, alone and experiencing a distinct sense of unjustice as a result of the sack-of-potatoes treatment. What usually happens at this point in a real scene is that the sub starts to cry, or becomes catatonic and withdrawn, the dom stops the scene, determines what the problem is and helps the sub through it, and then, the scene either continues (if the dom thinks the sub is in a condition to handle it) or it changes to something else (Beauty is still thrown over his shoulder, but she gets to wear a pair of panties and the men are told to ride in front of the prince instead of behind him), or if the sub has had an extremely negative reaction, it stops altogether. The horses and soldiers are told, as nicely as possible, to go home: the play party is over.

2. The Innkeeper's Daughter Spanks Beauty with a Wooden Paddle (p. 26)

A tad bit unrealistic. First of all, Beauty begins to cry before anything starts to happen. Sure, she's very emotionally charged by now, but remember, she's brand new at all this: she has no way of knowing how badly a wooden paddle can hurt. Her anticipatory crying, however, makes the scene more exciting. Wooden paddles, surprisingly enough, give very heavy pain. When given a choice between such a paddle and a cane, half the time I will choose the cane, because, even with its horrible after-burn, the sensations strike me as less intense as those from a paddle. It is unlikely that a dominant would give a newbie, unused to such pain, a severe paddling with such an instrument. Were this real life, the innkeeper's daughter might have given Beauty four or five medium-light swats with the wooden paddle, then switched to a light flogger (soft deerskin, no knots in the tips) or a leather slapper paddle for the longer part of the spanking, then finished her up with one or two medium-hard swats with the wooden paddle.

I don't know why this happens but one common reaction of new submissives to hard, intense, unexpected pain is that they get angry! I used to, and often it was while under a heavy wooden paddle (those suckers deliver an almost shocking pain) and I recently saw it happen to another novice sub when she was given a sort of pain (labia clamping) that she particularly disliked. When you're a sub in a scene and this sort of anger comes up, it can be very confusing because it doesn't fall within the range of behaviours and responses you think appropriate for someone in your situation. Some subs start to cry, and when you ask them why, they say they are angry. Others are so shocked or upset by the fact that they're feeling that particular emotion that they try to repress it--when the dominant asks them if something is wrong they answer "no" honestly, because to them it is inconceivable that they could be experiencing anger at the top. If the scene at the inn was a real life account, Beauty might very well have fallen into a rage at the treatment she was receiving at the innkeeper's daughter's hands. She may not have said or done something at the time (beyond crying) but once alone, I wouldn't be surprised if the prince had a very angry, rebellious, hurt, or withdrawn little sub on his hands.

3. The Prince's Bedchamber (pages 58-65)

Completely unrealistic in one sense. No competent and experienced dominant (in fact, no self-confident human being of any orientation) that I know of would get even slightly jealous because his sub was eyeing other male meat, especially sub male meat. I mean, dominants who get it, who understand that they own you, and that they can control your sexuality to whatever extent that they desire, could not care less if you make eyes at another body. Whether or not you are allowed to do something with this other body is entirely up to your dominant's discretion.

The prince, however, not only falls into an insane rage when he catches Beauty eyeing the male slave Alexi, but does something that I suspect few sane and experienced dominants would do were they feeling similarly: he beats her out of anger. If I had been Beauty, my trust in my top's ability to control himself would have dipped below zero by this point and I would be feeling nothing but scorn for this wanna-be dom. If he can't even control himself to the the degree that he acts out his own emotions, how can I possibly make myself believe that he has the skills or ability to control me? However, anger scenes appeal to many people, and Rice, who seemed to try to put a little bit of everything into these stories, was providing considerable fantasy fodder with this scene.

The whipping itself was realistic in length and intensity, but again, it is not the sort of thing one normally does with a brand new, unseasoned sub--it typically takes considerable time to work someone up to that level of pain. Backs of thighs--OUCH! With the kind of implement he was using (a belt--and belts vary, but I'm assuming this one was a baddie: heavy with sharp edges) one or two hard cuts on each thigh are quite bearable, but after even a small handful of such blows, the ones that follow hit on skin that is still sensitive and stinging from the last cut, and that's what really hurts.

4. Picking Roses (page 159)

This scene, where someone scatters a basketful of roses all over the floor and then paddles Beauty as she crawls around on all fours retrieving them with her teeth is very realistic and quite fun to act out. The physical action helps dampen the pain somewhat, and the combination of pain and humiliation is quite delightful for all parties involved. The scolding works well with those subs that don't have a problem with verbal abuse, and the only important physical factor you have to watch out for is the condition of the sub's knees. If the sub has bad knees, fast, active crawling might put too much stress on them. Kneepads are used by some dominants, but for others, they ruin the aesthetic.

One way this fantasy scene would probably differ from the real life version is in the way the sub responds within it: instead of sobbing and thinking helpless stupid thoughts like "It did not matter; she could not please; she deserved to be beaten" in response to the dominants' obviously fake anger, a "real" Beauty might be giggling along with them when thinking about what a ridiculous sight she made, scurrying around on the carpet like a pathetic little animal. She also might feel, in response to the full body whipping that comes later, not a false sense of despair over her failure to complete an obviously impossible task, but the delicious realization that they were whipping her because they enjoyed it, not because they were angrily punishing her for some trumped-up charge of failure.