This is a guest post by Miz Twist. If you've attended a few chat nights you've probably seen her lovely moniker there a time or two.
This book by a practicing husband-and-wife team is a great introduction to the BDSM and Domination/submission scene for a nervous Newbie, as well as a useful reference for the more experienced player. I can guarantee that almost everybody will find good ideas to apply to their own scenes and lifestyle choices.
When I blithely offered during a Submissive Guide chat to toss off a review of The Loving Dominant by John Warren, one small detail escaped me. Looking at it again with a critical eye instead of just for enjoyment was a very different reading experience, and it took a while to figure out how to express this experience in a way that would be accurate and fair.
John Warren himself apologizes for attempting to cram too much into one volume, for no better reason than to expand the book’s appeal and market. I have to challenge whether the Community really needs another SM-101 when we have so many other excellent introductory resources available. To their credit, the Warrens do include a “Suggested Reading” section at the conclusion of most chapters – but even though their descriptions of a wide range of BDSM activities do seem to be reasonably accurate, the inclusion of so much material that isn’t related to the title topic results in disappointment that they didn’t dare to concentrate on deeper investigation of their subject’s promised discussion.
Production of this book is also disappointing. Because so many previous reviewers had complained about the number and severity of spelling and grammar errors in the first edition, I shelled out for the “new and improved” version instead of buying a used copy of the previous one. Unfortunately, if they had an editor with at least a high school Regents diploma it doesn’t show. This might not be a problem for some readers, but it’s a major distraction for me. This is just a personal gripe; anybody who presents themselves as a writer should show ability with the tools of the trade (and I mean written English, not just a computer keyboard).
While I do plan to keep my copy of The Loving Dominant – and might even buy the Kindle edition for ease of searching for scene ideas by keywords – I would have liked to have seen more attention paid to the “how” and “what” of expressing dominance in a loving way and avoiding that slippery slope into selfishness and abuse. As a Dominant, I’m always seeking new and better ways to give my subs what they need. As a submissive, it’s useful to know what to look for (and look out for since the line between “dominant” and “abuser” can be so thin and dangerous, and it can be difficult to find a “true dom”). The message that deep and abiding love can and indeed does exist within the Dominant/submissive dynamic was well presented but only as a tease and a tickle with too much other information creating a noisy background.
Product Information
- Paperback: 265 pages
- Publisher: Greenery Pr; 3 edition (March 22, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1890159727
- Buy Now from Amazon.com: Paperback | Kindle
MIZ_TWIST is a Switch sadomasochist currently living in Western New York and active in the BDSM community there. She enjoyed bedroom roleplay submission with her husband for 19 years without benefit of the Internet, a lifestyle community, or safewords – it ended badly. She is currently online submissive to her long-distance Master, Domme to her own 24/7 live-in submissive, and Majordomo of “House Weigelia”, a kink-friendly polyamorous House with online and real-time members.
