The Vault - Secretary

Secretary (2002)
directed by Steven Shainberg
written by Erin Cressida Wilson, based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill
starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Jeremy Davies

Before you see it you expect the clichés: leather, whips, corsets and high-heeled, knee-high boots. You won't see those things at any time in Secretary. What you will see in the film's hypnotic opening shot is Maggie Gyllanhaal slinking gracefully through the office in a normal, if slightly old fashion, skirt and blouse and -- oh, yes -- her wrists restrained at the ends of a positively dainty spreader bar linked to her leather collar.

Secretary is a romantic comedy about a dominant-submissive relationship that forms between the titular secretary, Lee Holliway (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and her shy, sensitive lawyer boss, E. Edward Grey (James Spader). Miss Holliway and Mr. Grey's relationship doesn't involve much violence, aside from one fairly memorable spanking scene. What is on display in this movie is the care and attention to details necessary for one person to sweep another away in a healthy, loving power dynamic relationship.

I recently rewatched the movie with a group of friends, including one who had never seen it before and wasn't much for BDSM. This friend's discomfort was palpable all the way through the movie. Men and women alike, we have become feminists. We like our women empowered. That's why the paradox posed by Secretary fucks with our heads the way that it does. Should women be so empowered that they have the right to give up that power to a man they trust? If you think the answer is yes, you're probably in the minority, sadly enough. The beauty of Secretary is that it posed as a harmless little romance and put that question out there for a mainstream audience. It's also difficult to deny how hot it is to watch Lee and Mr. Grey's little pas de deux, so if you are one of those who think what they're seeing is wrong the filmmakers have pretty successfully implicated you in the crime they're staging.

The characters in this movie are probably the world's perfect dominant and perfect submissive, which is a credit to both the screenwriter and the actors who bring them to life. Lee comes from a dysfunctional family. She has developed a deep need to please those around her and the unfortunate tendency to punish herself with pain when she can't. In Mr. Grey she finds someone who will always appreciate her efforts to please him and who can change the punishment from a ritual of self-loathing to an erotic and pleasurable activity. Mr. Grey, meanwhile, is an intelligent man who is very anal about details and hates himself for using these two characteristics to imagine elaborate tortures to show his affection for the people he loves. In Lee he finds someone who enjoys his affections and really wants to know the side he has kept hidden from everyone.

If the ending is a little unrealistic -- Lee's public act of self-humiliation would probably ruin Mr. Grey's law practice in the conservative suburb they inhabit -- you can't blame a romantic comedy for concluding with melodrama. And don't make any mistake, this is definitely a romantic comedy, complete with the cliché of the woman in the wedding dress running to the one she actually loves in one final, desperate attempt to win his love. Except that in this movie her beloved orders her to stay perfectly still for three days and she ends up urinating in the wedding dress. That's not such a big difference, right?

The Stacks - SM 101

SM 101, 2nd ed.
by Jay Wiseman
Greenery Press, 1996

So, you like rough sex. You want to explore it but you have this nagging feeling that it could be... oh, I don't know, a little bit unsafe. Jay Wiseman to the rescue! In just over three hundred pages Wiseman gives you a basic rundown on the safe and responsible ways to incorporate pain and power exchange into your sex life.

The book is perfectly titled -- if your college had offered a freshman seminar in BDSM this is exactly what would be covered. After dispensing with the basics Wiseman touches on how to find partners, rope bondage, non-rope options for restraint, how and where hit a submissive to cause pain safely, different flagellation instruments (hands, floggers, paddles, crops, whips, canes and the like), how and where to use clamps, a whole plethora of sensation play, humiliation, how to train a submissive, how to have a BDSM relationship, and how to find the BDSM organization in your area or create one if it doesn't already exist.

All of this information is first rate. As a former paramedic Wiseman always errs on the side of safety. He believes (as most responsible S&M players do) that if what turns you on is particularly dangerous there is probably some way of at least simulating your kink safely. As a decent human being he advocated doing BDSM with respect for everyone involved. That means negotiating your scene in detail with your play partner ahead of time. Throughout his book Wiseman makes sure that his reader never forgets that even if the violence is real (though carefully controlled) the power inequality of BDSM is entirely pretend. Even if one person acts dominent and another acts submissive they are both equals who should never confuse the roles they play with reality.

The main criticism I've heard of SM 101 in kink circles is that Wiseman is just too cautious. I see why people say that. It was a little surprising to me that Wiseman introduces his intricate "silent alarm" technique (wherein if a third party isn't contacted by the submissive by a prearranged time the third party calls the cops) before even covering the idea of a safeword. At another time in the book Wiseman suggests that all responsible dominents should keep emergency lights and full size fire extinguishers in their playroom. Valid safety concerns, without a doubt, but most of us don't even have a playroom. For most of us, it's just our bedroom and we have a small stash of kinky stuff in the closet that we'll take out if a willing person happens to wonder in. Despite what Wiseman says, most people just steer clear of open flame and play the odds that there won't be a blackout. I don't think that's blatantly irresponsible. And a scene negotiation would take years if you really covered all the things he's suggesting be covered in detail. However the point of these parts of the book is more to instill a deep respect for safety than to require the reader to follow the instructions to the letter, so Wiseman's overzealousness is easily excused.

The one criticism I will add -- this book is badly in need of a third edition. Since 1996 the kink community has largely moved onto the Internet. This book's discussion of the kink community mainly focuses on alternative papers, bulletin boards in sex-positive stores, newsletters and getting a PO Box to protect your privacy. The only time Wiseman mentions the web is to suggest a couple of newsgroups (remember those? me neither) that might have information. An SM 101 that urges readers to take full advantage of online communities like Fet Life would be a much more helpful book for newbies who are looking to make a connection with the kink community, especially if they don't happen to live in New York or San Francisco.

Despite these problems I would absolutely recommend this book. Experienced players may learn a thing or two about safety. For beginners, this should be the first book they read.

On Vacation... But Never Fear!

Hi Everyone.

I'm on vacation for the months of July and August and I'm cutting a lot of my ties to projects that I usually work on. That includes, unfortunately, this blog.

But never fear! I've been holding out on you!

You see, when I first started this blog last September one of the things I was most excited to do was review some books and movies that look at sex in a positive way. I've always liked this kind of material but it has always been a struggle for me to find it. Over the years, mostly through trial and error, I've found some good stuff. It's a work in progress but I've started to build a library and I wanted to review some of it (mostly positively) so the readers of this blog would know it was out there.

Alas, life intruded into this plan. More immediate things kept coming up and distracting me. Frankly, it's easier to post a link to a juicy piece of news or an interesting article than it is to write a book review, and I took the easy route.

Well, last May, when I realized I was going to be away for awhile I decided the perfect way to maintain the blog in the meantime was to review some of those long neglected books and movies and schedule the occasional automatic update. Maybe you will find something fun to read at the beach or in the hammock!

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer. Enjoy your summer reading. I'm going to enjoy mine!

-Pendard

Isn't Polyamory Easier?

Sure it is. It's also more honest and more ethical than cheating. But it doesn't have its own iPhone app.

From Time Magazine:

Two-timing politicians, take note: Cheating has never been easier. AshleyMadison.com, a personals site designed to facilitate extra-marital affairs, now boasts slick iPhone and Blackberry versions that help married horndogs find like-minded cheaters within minutes. The new tools are aimed at tech-savvy adulterers wary of leaving tracks on work or home computers. Because the apps are loaded up from phones' browsers, they leave no electronic trail that suspicious spouses can trace.

Even as public outrage boils up over the infidelity of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign, millions of Americans are sneaking online to do some surreptitious cheating of their own. (...)

The formula is working. AshleyMadison's membership has doubled over the past year to 4 million. (...) Over the past month alone, 679,000 men and women have used the service to contact a cheating partner. According to their profiles, 92% of males on the site are married or otherwise attached, as are 60% of female members. No word on how many politicians have signed on.

Humpday in SoHo

I haven't been doing a lot of Geeky Sex stuff recently, as you might have noticed. In the past month I've had a very busy time at work, had a death in the family, finished a non-blog writing project, started a bigger non-blog writing project and gone on at least one pleasant date. But I can't stay away for that long.



So last Thursday I headed down to the SoHo Apple Store to get the skinny on a new movie from filmmaker Lynn Shelton, Humpday. It's an independent film -- not one of those indie studio pictures, but a real indie made with digital video, improvisation, few actors, fewer locations, a lot of love and very little money. It's basis (and title) comes from Seattle's Hump Film Festival, Dan Savage and The Stranger's amateur porn festival which famously attracts a lot of talented newcomers by publicly destroying the tapes at the festival's conclusion.

Shelton's story is about two straight men played by Mark Duplass (director of The Puffy Chair) and Joshua Leonard (from The Blair Witch Project). They are old college buddies whose lives have taken them in different directions. During a night of heavy drinking at a Seattle party they hear about the Hump festival and plan to make a movie where the two of them have sex. The next morning neither man wants to go through with it but the competitive side of their friendship won't let either one of them back out first.

"It's about and for straight guys," said Lynn Shelton, who appeared at the Apple Store with Duplass and Leonard, adding, "It's a great date movie!" She explained that she is bi (though now married monogamously) and has always been fascinated by the fluidity of sexual orientation. In this movie she's trying to explore straight male anxiety about gayness. "I was not setting out to make a comedy," said Shelton, explaining that she and her two lead actors had had numerous conversations about the ways close platonic male friendships are limited by homophobia while they developed story. They were also not setting out to make a political statement. Rather they were trying to question the identities of the two main characters and let their concept unfold in the most natural way possible.

The movie has played at a number of film festivals, including Sundance and Cannes, and opens in a limited release on July 10 (here in NYC it will be playing at the Angelika). I'm going to be on vacation then and therefore not blogging but I promise to give you my take on it as soon as I get back.

Sleeping With the Enemy

This morning Mistress Matisse posted a very interesting letter on her blog. The letter is from a gay guy who regrets having recently slept with another gay guy who has decided to remain partially in the closet so he can continue to play a major role in church programs that are important to him. The letter writer asks whether Mistress Matisse also feels bad about offering aid and comfort to the enemy, as it were -- many of her clients are also closeted and publicly come down on the sex-negative, anti-sex work side of things. Have a look at Matisse's very interesting response.

One Night Stand, by Garfunkel and Oakes

I saw this video by Garfunkel and Oakes on Slog this weekend.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Ruth!

Today is the 81st birthday of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, one of the preeminent sexperts of our grandparent's generation. Her life story is also rather interesting -- she was the only survivor of a German Jewish family killed in the Holocaust, was wounded in action during the war for Israeli independence, became a psyciatrist in the 1950s and finally a sexpert thanks to a late night radio show she began hosting in the 1970s.

Dr. Ruth doesn't get a lot of love from the sex-positive community these days. Although she is probably as responsible as anyone for promoting the idea that sex is healthy and spreading correct sexual information in her radio shows and books, I've always found her to be slightly biased against sex that doesn't happen in long-term monogamous relationships. Still, everyone's entitled to an opinion. While I might prefer Dan Savage or Susie Bright or Betty Dodson, it's inexcusable that this is the first time I've ever written about her here. I'll remedy that in the relatively near future by reviewing one or two of her books. For today I'll just say, Happy Birthday!

New Hampsire Approves Marriage Equality

New York Times:

NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGALIZES SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

BOSTON — The New Hampshire legislature approved revisions to a same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday, and Gov. John Lynch promptly signed the legislation, making the state the sixth to let gay couples wed.

The bill had been through several permutations to satisfy Mr. Lynch and certain legislators that it would not force religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriage to participate in ceremonies celebrating it. Some groups had feared they could be sued for refusing to allow same-sex weddings on their property.

Mr. Lynch, who previously supported civil unions but not marriage for same-sex couples, said in a statement that he had heard “compelling arguments that a separate system is not an equal system.”

“Today,” he said, “we are standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear that they will receive the same rights, responsibilities — and respect — under New Hampshire law.”

The Internal Clitoris, by Betty Dodson

Audacia Ray, who runs Waking Vixen, teaches a class on human sexuality on Rutgers in Newark, New Jersey. She has recently posted her new syllabus which makes maximum use online material. That's how I found this fantastic video on the internal parts of the clitoris by Betty Dodson. Credit where credit is due.

I wish I had seen this in time to post it on V-Day (maybe I'll repost next year) but now that I've seen it I didn't want to wait that long. Enjoy!