Hi! Thanks for spending a little time today with me, Caitlin Ricci, and my co-author, Cari Z, as we talk about our new novel, Camellia. Today we wanted to talk a little bit about what dominance means to us since Camellia is a lesbian romance with BDSM aspects and we both feel that the idea of someone who is dominant over another person is often confused with other ideas about BDSM as a whole.

Cari

Let me put this out there: I’m a novice when it comes to writing BDSM. The first thing that comes to my mind when I consider the word “dominance” is forcible submission. Not the sort you might think of when it pertains to BDSM, but the dominance you feel when you’ve manipulated your opponent into a spot where they have to submit, or pay the penalty. The kind of submission you get out of close-contact sports like wrestling and jiu jitsu, that’s the sort of thing I know front to back. Translating that into a BDSM setting, focusing on the purely physical, would have been easy for me.

 

That’s part of why I didn’t do it. The physical stuff is interesting, and can be integral to the whole, but the heart of the relationship that Caitlin and I wrote between Lucy and Danny in Camellia is a mental game. It’s a chess match, each half surveying the board and making their moves with cautious excitement, not striding onto the mat and fighting it out. Sometimes the best response is physical; other times, Lucy dominates Danny with nothing more than a few words and a gesture. Making myself stretch to write a dominant who asks for submission, who makes her submissive want to give it to her easily, was a delightful challenge. I have the feeling it’s just going to get harder, and better, the deeper I go with this couple.

Caitlin

I enjoy writing BDSM and Camellia wasn’t the first time I’d tackled the idea of two people falling in love with a bit of kink, but it was the first time I’d attempted to write this kind of story with two women involved. For dominant characters I want them strong but they still need to be human with understandable motives and accessible emotions.

That’s what I think of when I hear the word “dominance” and apply it to a person. Too often people hear BDSM and picture abusive scenes or have no idea at all. With the popularity of these books on the rise it’s important to have healthy relationships available to be read and I’m proud to say that’s what we were able to accomplish here. Lucy is a dominant person and she expects certain things both in her professional life and also in her private one. Danny makes a beautiful submissive because she naturally takes to that role with Lucy and still retains who she is.

The characters never compromise themselves for each other and I think that’s the most important thing about a dominant person- that they can bring something out of the other person in a safe way without them feeling like they’ve lost something of themselves in the process. Dominance and submission don’t have to be scary concepts and they can work as easily in life as they do in a book. All it takes is open communication, trust, and enough knowledge about yourself to know what is safe and comfortable for you.

 

Cari Bio:

I’ve been publishing erotica for a few years now, writing it for longer and am fortunately back in the US of A now, where I can work on being consistent instead of blaming my laziness on Togo. I’m in my late twenties, married to a very understanding man who came with me to this brave new world, and I love erotica, specifically m/m, but I write more broadly than that. Questions, comments, gentle taps with the “get your ass to work!” stick…my email is carizabeth@hotmail.com. You can find my free stuff at Literotica.com under the name Carizabeth.

 

Caitlin Bio:

Caitlin was fortunate growing up to be surrounded by family and teachers that encouraged her love of reading. She has always been a voracious reader and that love of the written word easily morphed into a passion for writing. If she isn’t writing, she can usually be found studying as she works toward her counseling degree. She comes from a military family and the men and women of the armed forces are close to her heart. She also enjoys gardening, hiking, and horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies where she calls home with her wonderful fiance and their two dogs. Her belief that there is no one true path to happily ever after runs deeply through all of her stories.

 

 

Danny doesn’t expect much to come from the interview she has lined up through her modelling agency, who told her only that it involved tea and a kink convention. She thinks it won’t be much more than wearing some strange outfit, sitting around, and getting easy money that she desperately needs.

 

What she gets instead is Lucy, a formidable woman in riding boots and a corset, who makes Danny want to please her without saying a word. By the end of the interview, Danny is convinced that her new job isn’t going to be anywhere near as easy as she first believed. Can Danny make the woman determined to keep her at the end of her riding crop let her into her heart as well as her bed?

 

Buy Link:

http://www.lessthanthreepress.com/books/index.php?main_page=product_bookx_info&cPath=90&products_id=598

 

Don’t forget to join in the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia and check out all the awesome posts! Mine (Adrian) is here. And Caitlin’s post is here!