Fun and Kink

Watching the evolution of kink groups over the past couple of decades has been interesting. Twenty years ago, the process of finding and joining kink groups was a tedious rigmarole that involved looking up ads in the backs of newsletters sold at adult bookstores, exchanging letters, meeting for appointments, going to munches, paying yearly fees and then, quite often, finally getting to go to a play party only to find that no one there shared your fetishes. These days, all an adult has to do is get a membership on a social networking site for kinky people, look up where the nearest event is (and there are a whole lot more of them now than there were before), pay the event fee and go do whatever it is you want to do.

One of the things that I enjoyed about the evolution of kink groups in those twenty years was the creation of TNG (The Next Generation) groups, or TNG subgroups within existing groups, for younger kinksters, usually defined as those 35 years of age and under. Not only did I have an easier time talking with people in TNG groups, but the parties were just a lot more fun. My style of kink has always tended to be on the silly and playful side, and you just don't find that many older kinksters into that sort of play. On the whole, I'd say that those who get into kink for fun and joyful purposes are a very small percentage, and given the solemn tone that tends to dominate at all-ages play parties, it's easy to see why so many of us who like that kind of play never really feel at home in that kind of an environment.

As I've been writing the California Bondage Sorority books, it's been difficult to figure out the tone to take. I've always wanted to address serious issues like abuse and consent in the books, and so I try to keep a fairly serious tone in most of the novel. There are less serious moments, though, including the kind of "tie-up games" I love so much. Stylistically, I think they work to help the books from becoming too dark, but I worry about readers not identifying with the events like they do with the more serious scenes that they're more likely to have seen in kink clubs (and online videos and the like as well).

The California Bondage Sorority books have never been intended to present what I think of as an idealized world of kink (far from it), but there's always a danger when you're a writer that people will assume you write about how you'd like things to be. I fear that this may cut both ways with me, because the funnier scenes may turn off old-time kinksters who want their kink more serious, and the darker scenes will turn off people who don't want to consider the serious issues of abuse and consent in their erotica. Feedback on California Bondage Sorority Book One has been positive so far, but time will tell whether or not that continues to be the case as I work to find the right tone for the novels.