Diary of a Submissive by Sophie Morgan
I am being compensated by BlogHer to review this book, but the thoughts expressed in this post are entirely my own.
Let me get this over with and say: I did not care for this book at all. I was interested in reviewing it because I never managed to get on the 50 Shades of Grey bandwagon and when I read that Diary was the true 50 Shades of Grey as happened to real life submissive, Sophie Morgan, I thought, "Hmm. Here's a way for me to get in the know about sexual domination (Why? I don't know. Curiosity, I guess.) and hopefully read some better writing (since I'd heard from several people that the writing in 50 Shades was at times unbearable) while doing it (since Sophie Morgan is purportedly a journalist)!"
Well, sadly for me - it read like porn. And, frankly, not the kind of porn in which I might be remotely interested.
It's the "true story" of Sophie Morgan and her descent into the life style of a sexually submissive woman. The book is about 300 pages long and about 275 pages are dedicated to graphic detailing of her submissive experiences. And when I say graphic - be ready to wince and possibly have to skip over parts if you are at all sensitive to reading about pain.
I truly wish more of the book would have been devoted to her exploring the why of the situation because that's what I find fascinating and that's what I thought the book was going to delve into. She really doesn't delve into that much at all - except to occasionally question her limits - but not really the sanity of her actions.
The book did get me thinking and I am curious to know if and what it got others thinking about. Here's what I was thinking about (and by no means are these perfectly sane thoughts):
What do therapists say about submission? What do therapists say about a man who can inflict such torture on a woman purportedly for both of their pleasure? If a submissive can be so humiliated, debased, physically hurt, and gain sexual pleasure from that - does a submissive gain sexual pleasure from any form of pain? What initiates a connection between the two (since her relationships were otherwise rather shallow)? Are there people who actually do this stuff (don't answer that - I really don't want to know)??? And my frequent thought (because I have a sick, sick mind - but not sick like this chickie) - Jesus, if a submissive was ever captured and held in a prisoner war camp - they would never be able to torture her to talk. She'd take her secrets to the grave.
I also kept thinking: This woman is gonna love the pain of natural childbirth. And: How is this different from rape? (I suspect she would say because she was in control the whole time. My response to that is - how does she know she was in control if it never stopped and she never used her "safe word"? What would women who have truly been sexually tortured think of this book?
While I was reading this book 50 Shades of Cain aired on Law & Order SVU. Interestingly enough in this episode (often the episodes parallel "real life" drama) the author of a "true sexual submissive story" gets rapes and no one believes her. Then on the show it's revealed that the book is not even true or her own work. That got me thinking!
So, for me, this book created more questions for me than it answered. It also left me feeling somewhat depressed, a whole lot disturbed, (like when I watched that old movie about the sex trade - can't remember the name of it and don't want to Google it ;o) and a lot like I wanted to take a bath and wash off all the nastiness. As far as it being mommy porn (like 50 Shades was sold as) - I guess if nipple clamps and other more graphic forms of torture make you hot - yeah. For me, no thank you. I gave birth to four kids (three of them naturally) and that's about all the pain my hoo-ha can take for one lifetime.
If you'd like to join the discussion (which is bound to get interesting) on BlogHer here is the link: http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/where-do-you-find-confidence. Hope to "see" you there!
Thanks for the read and I'll be back with a more humorous post soon!
